


Misunderstandings by Moonlight

by Springmagpies



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Inspired by Corpse Bride (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24367039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Springmagpies/pseuds/Springmagpies
Summary: Leo Fitz is to be married to Miss Jemma Simmons. The wedding only a day away and only just having met his bride to be, Fitz is understandably nervous. After all, weddings can be strange events and they aren't the easiest to prepare for. However, as he is rehearsing his vows, Fitz realizes weddings can be even stranger than he expected.A Corpse Bride AU!
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 82
Kudos: 43





	1. According to Plan

**Author's Note:**

> The start of another series! Yay! I'm not sure how many chapters this will be yet, so stay tuned for that. I am super excited to share this fic and I hope you enjoy!! 💕

As he walked down the steps of his English home alongside his mother, Fitz quite felt as though his tie was going to strangle him. With every minute that passed, the navy blue fabric seemed to wind its way closer to shutting off his windpipe and his vest tightening along with it. Fitz had never liked the constricting feeling of a tie. Not only did they mean that he was being forced away from his study, his book-lined room of solace and the only place he felt at home in, but it also most likely meant he was going some place where he would be reminded that he didn’t fit in.

Fitz’s family was one of the many dubbed by the elites of London as the nouveau riche. His father, the formidable Alistar Fitz had made a large sum of money in the production of steel before his passing. The influx of wealth had catapulted them into circles they had never dreamed of being in and when Alistar had died, the pressure to maintain the business--as well as their standing in society--had fallen with extra weight onto Fitz’s shoulders. However, no matter how kind he and his mother were at social gatherings; how much they interacted and invested; or how well Fitz ran the business, they could never move beyond the outskirts of the upper echelon they were surrounded by. 

That is until the proposition of a proposal had fallen into their somewhat hesitant laps. 

The Simmons family was one of the oldest and most powerful aristocratic families in England. However, rumors floated about that Lord Simmons had lost the family wealth investing in risky stocks. These were popular rumors, but they were, after all, rumors. And so the Simmonses were still highly thought of and it was therefore quite shocking when the matriarch of the family had approached Mrs. Fitz.

It had been at the opening of a hospital that Lady Simmons had struck up a conversation with Mrs. Fitz. Champagne in hand, Lady Simmons had glided elegantly over to where Mrs. Fitz had stood, awaiting her son’s return from the loo, and had begun to talk about a wedding that was taking place the following week. Somehow she had turned the topic of conversation over to her daughter, for the Simmons’s had a lovely daughter by the name of Jemma, or so Lady Simmons had mentioned. Mrs. Fitz listened to the other woman describe her daughter with great interest. Apparently Jemma was around Leo’s age, had a good head on her shoulders, and was quite passive according to her mother.

“She’s a darling thing,” her mother had said, an almost too sweet smile on her face, “as gentle as a butterfly our dear Jemma.”

Mrs. Fitz thought the young woman sounded lovely, and in her mind it seemed the perfect match. Her son was quite reserved as well so their dispositions would be quite compatible. He was of marrying age, and being tied to the Simmons name couldn’t hurt their standing. So, by the time Fitz had returned from the loo he was well on his way to being engaged to Miss Jemma Simmons. The whole matter went very quickly after that. The arrangement went through the parents, communicating over the heads of their children as they organized the marriage--Mrs. Fitz with a knot of nerves in her stomach, but the best of intentions, and Lord and Lady Simmons with their eye upon a larger goal.

“They want our money,” Fitz had said nearly a thousand times to his mother. Yet, he couldn’t seem to get the words out. He knew as well as her it was a business transaction that they had gotten themselves caught up in. If the rumors were accurate, the Simmonses needed their money, and Fitz knew that in order to expand their relationships in London they needed the Simmonses’ status. He just never expected to be the payment. He felt like a cow being sold at market and he couldn’t help but think--or perhaps hope--that the Simmonses’ daughter felt quite the same as him.

Suddenly and without even really understanding how it had happened, Leo Fitz found himself newly engaged without ever having met his fiance, in the loop with the great and powerful house of Simmons, and completely out of his depth. And that was how he wound up nearly tripping clumsily down his front steps while loosening his tie, starting on his way to his wedding rehearsal. 

“Stop fiddling with your tie, Leo,” Mrs. Fitz said once they were in dim light of the carriage. She sat facing him, her gloved hands in her lap as she examined her son. If the London fog wasn’t dreary enough, the dark color of the cushions sucked up whatever light remained, and it didn’t seem to help Fitz’s mood. 

“It’s tight,” he tried to explain, giving his tie another tug away from his Adam's apple. 

Mrs. Fitz’s lips tucked into a closed smile. “You’re just nervous, darling. It’s normal.”

He dropped his hands away from his tie and scooted his back up against the deep blue seat of the carriage. “I’m not nervous. I’m simply meeting my soon to be wife for the first time and her aristocratic family that has to hide a sneer every time they see us. What about any of that would make me a bit nervous? Life is simply beer and skittles.”

“Leo,” his mother said reproachfully, “now is not the time to be grumpy.” Her face softened and she followed his eyes to where they were watching the window. “From what I hear, Miss Simmons is quite lovely. And I’m sure she will adore you.”

Fitz felt his tie grow tighter again and it took every bit of self control for him to not tug at it. How could his mother be sure Miss Simmons would adore him? What if he was disappointing? What if he mucked it all up? What if Miss Simmons was displeased at having been saddled with him of all people?

“Sure, mum,” he said, his voice low and as grey as the fog in the air. Outside the window, the streets of London and the smoggy sky slipped by while the thoughts looped in his mind like music in a music box. 

* * *

If Jemma Simmons hadn’t been nervous about her wedding rehearsal before, it was not helped by her mother’s sour disposition. Her mother often liked to comment on the weather for it was an easy topic of conversation that didn’t ruffle any feathers. You see, her mother did not approve of ruffled feathers. However, it seemed that for some reason, on today of all days, the weather had affronted her. 

“It’s a terrible day for a wedding,” her mother said, facing the window with her back to the room. 

“Wedding rehearsal,” her father corrected.

“It’s a terrible day for a wedding rehearsal.”

“It’s warmer than it looks,” Jemma commented. She didn’t mind the grey of the morning really, but the fact that her mother had found another thing to be disappointed about only made her wish to prove her liking of the weather all the more. 

Apparently it wasn’t the correct thing to say. Turning away from the window, Lady Simmons stared at her daughter with eyes like daggers. Jemma thought that perhaps the betrayal of the weather as a safe topic was the cause. Though, it was most likely her daughter’s so-called insolence. 

Lady Simmons clicked her tongue. “The heat is part of the reason it is so dreadful. Far too muggy for a wedding.”

“Rehearsal,” Lord Simmons corrected again. His voice was dreary and his eyes tired as they grazed over the morning paper. 

“I thought it was rather nice when I opened the window,” Jemma continued. 

“You shouldn’t be having your windows open,” her mother said. “Someone could sneak through and rob us.” She walked away from the window to stand behind one of the empty high back chairs, her fingers tapping the upholstered backing in a way Jemma had learned meant, now would be a good time to leave the room.

“Are Mr. Fitz and his mother arriving soon?” Jemma asked, carefully adjusting her voice to the tone her mother preferred.  _ As quiet and delicate as a butterfly _ . 

Her mother straightened her spine with importance. “Yes, they will be. Which means you should be upstairs preparing yourself for their arrival. Run along now. And do not leave that room until you are asked after.”

“Yes mother,” Jemma said, standing up from the sofa and making her way towards the door.

“And Jemma, dear,” her mother called, “Tell Anna that that corset should be as tight as it can go and I should not see a hair out of place when you come back down those steps.” 

Jemma, her hand still on the parlor door, cast her eyes to the floor, her fingers fiddling in front of her. “Yes, mother,” she mumbled.

“Jemma,” her mother said impatiently. 

She raised her chin as was proper. “Yes, mother,” she repeated, this time with the correct posture and clarity. Her mother hated mumbling. 

With every pull of her corset laces, Jemma felt a bit of air leave her lungs and a bit of bile rise in her throat. Her mother was anxious for the day to go according to plan and her father had mentioned on more than one occasion how important it was that Mr. Fitz approve of her. 

“No talking about any of your little projects,” her father had warned.

“Or other nonsense,” her mother had added.

“Be seen.”

“Not heard.”

She didn’t know why they felt it important to repeat such things the day before her wedding, like they hadn’t repeated it her whole life. For as long as she remembered, Jemma had been treated as a thing to be displayed and--now that she was of age--a thing to be bargained with. The whole ordeal left her feeling close to tears and she wished more than anything that she was allowed out of her room so she could read in the library. Her parents had allowed her to read very specific books, books that would help “cultivate her into a proper young lady.” But Jemma was much more clever than they realized and had swapped out the covers of many books in the family library. Many of her science books were disguised as etiquette guides. No one read them other than her anyway. Her father preferred the paper or his own private collection and her mother wasn’t one for literature. It was far too fanciful. 

However, today was the day before her wedding, the day she would meet the man she would be spending the rest of her life with. So, instead of being in the library as she wished to be, she was standing with her arms wrapped tightly around her bedpost as her ladies maid, and chaperone for the day, Anna laced up her corset. 

“Should I be able to taste my own heartbeat?” Jemma asked after another tug of the laces. 

“I believe that is the fashion, yes,” Anna replied. 

“Whoever decided upon that--” Another tug. “I would like to have a word with.”

Anna smiled and with one last pull finished lacing up the corset. Jemma then changed into the decided upon dress. It was a muted mauve color with buttons fastening to half-way up her neck. She liked the charm that was situated at the hollow of her throat, the oval pearl surrounded in lace. And Anna did her hair in a wonderful twist at the back of her head that she liked as well. 

When she was done with her hair, her lady’s maid began to tidy up the extra pins and brush, leaving Jemma alone to sit in front of the vanity. Closing her eyes, Jemma ducked her head and tried to catch her breath, enjoying the little and most likely only bit of solitude she was going to have that day. 

“They’ve arrived,” Anna said, reentering the room and quickly shutting the door again. 

A jolt of nerves zipped through Jemma’s body, the corset not helping matters in the slightest as her breath was even more impacted. 

“And?” 

“Yes, Lady Jemma?”

Jemma swallowed. “Did you see them?”

“Yes,” Anna replied. 

“And?”

Anna grinned. “He’s very handsome. And he seems very nice. Seemed a bit nervous, but that’s to be expected isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jemma concurred, “quite.”

Back downstairs, Fitz was trying very hard not to faint. Lord and Lady Simmons were daunting to say the least. Lord Simmons was quite a tall man with very broad shoulders and a very large brown mustache. Meanwhile, despite her small frame, he was rather sure Lady Simmons could kill him with her piercing chocolate-colored eyes. Currently, her gaze was less lethal and more disapproving, her eyebrows close together and low on her forehead. It was as though she were trying not to physically gag, her lips pursed and her throat stretched as her chin pointed upwards. It made his blood boil to be looked at that way, but what was he to do? It was the day before his wedding after all and these were to be his in-laws. He couldn’t just run up and yell at them. 

“Tea shall be served in the drawing room,” Lady Simmons said, her chin still in the air as she directed them to the appropriate room with a waving of her hand. 

Mrs. Fitz quickly bustled forward, leaving Fitz to follow at the rear. Trailing far behind the rest of the group, he tried to calm his nerves through observation, pointing out the fine pieces of art on the wall and the carefully arranged flowers. In his observation, he also noticed how the majority of the grey walls appeared rather bare. It was as though there had once been many pictures there but they had all been removed. Perhaps the paintings had been sold, Fitz thought. It added to the idea that the Simmonses were not as wealthy as their fine piece of property and fancy titles suggested. 

Distracted by the artwork, or lack thereof, Fitz was not paying attention to where he was going, promptly running into a rather large grand piano. His fingers pressed down on the keys as he tried to steady himself and he jumped away from the instrument as though it had burned him, terrified he had already made an embarrassing blunder by touching it at all. Luckily, however, his mother and Lord and Lady Simmons were already in the drawing room discussing what? Fitz couldn’t say. Most likely the weather. Fitz had found in his brief time with the aristocracy that Lords and Ladies seemed to like to discuss the weather.

Checking over both shoulders twice and even going so far as to lean back to see that the drawing room door was properly shut, Fitz sat down at the piano. He had first started playing the instrument when he was a boy. The one they had had in his childhood home had been passed down for years and had been very well loved. Reading in his study, working on his designs, and sitting down at the piano were all his little bits of peace. And at that moment, peace was just what Fitz desired.

He checked his surroundings one more time before gently putting his fingers on the ivory keys. They were cool and smooth as Fitz ran his fingers lightly across them without pressing down. He smiled at the sensation, breathed deeply, and pressed upon the keys. 

At first he simply stepped down the notes, his fingers strolling down the white and black tiled path. The sound pulled him into the music and he became more confident with his playing in the quiet hall. 

It came to him naturally, both music and the specific song he played. He had learned to play the piano quickly, but had since honed in his craft to the point where he could write his own compositions. The one he played upon the Simmonses piano was one of the pieces he had written himself, the notes having come to him one night in his head, passing along his tracks of thought like notes upon the staff. It was a soft tune to start, played with light fingers and gentle hands, before it transformed into something stronger. It was like the metamorphosis of a butterfly. The strong beats like each flapping of wings with the flowing melody overtop like a breeze, carrying the song along. He was so focused upon the music that he did not hear the footsteps upon the grand staircase behind him.

Jemma had heard the beginnings of the song from her room upstairs. It was like the music had somehow paired with the very air she breathed. It was so soft and so sweet with just a twinge of melancholy. She felt it right to her very core as music has the power to do. Despite having the piano in the hall, Jemma had never truly heard it played. It’s music had always been masked by the loud talking that came with important social gatherings. Now, with the house quiet and empty apart from her family and the family she was set to join, she could truly listen to the instrument’s beauty.

Upon hearing the song, Jemma had turned to Anna and begged to leave her room to see who was playing, swearing up and down that if she were caught she would not let a single thing happen to the lady’s maid. With a bit more begging and a bit more assurance, Jemma snuck out of her room, tiptoed down the steps, and walked over to the piano.

The man who sat upon the bench, whose fingers glided over the keys, was not what Jemma had expected. He was better than she had expected. He was young, her age it appeared, and handsome. His head was bowed over the keys, his face soft and changing with the ups and downs of the music. His hair was a light brown, styled into the fashion of London’s elite. But it appeared to not want to stay in said style, curling at the ends in a way Jemma found quite pleasing. 

Just as she had almost lost herself completely in the music, it seemed as though he sensed her presence as his eyes moved from the keys, to just past his shoulder, to her. It took him a moment to completely register she was there, but when he did he nearly fell off the bench in fright, his hands flying off the blocks of ivory and his legs stumbling to stand.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he said, the piano stool finally falling backward. He only just caught the small vase on the piano before it tipped.

“That’s quite alright,” Jemma said. She placed her hands behind her back and bit her lip to keep from smiling. 

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” he stuttered. 

“You play beautifully,” Jemma replied.

After lifting up the bench from off the floor, he straightened his tie and coughed nervously before looking at her. When he did, she realized just how blue his eyes were, even in the dim light of the house.

“Mother doesn’t let me near the piano,” she continued. “Too passionate.”

He looked at her quizzically. The look was not in a single way mean, he seemed more upset on her behalf.

“Too passionate?”

“Yes.”

He opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it, and shut his mouth once more. He looked about the hall and suddenly his eyes went very wide.

“Miss Simmons,” he said, his voice a tad bit higher than it had been before. “Where’s your chaperone.”

Jemma smiled. “I believe I left her in my room. And given the present circumstances I hope that you may call me Jemma.”

“Jemma,” he repeated and the sound of her name in his accent sounded as sweet as the music he played. 

“Leo.”

The cringe that momentarily contorted his face caused Jemma a brief moment of panic. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she started to say.

“Oh, no no no. It’s just--Fitz is fine,” he rushed nervously, tugging at his tie.

“Fitz,” she said and was relieved to see the warm smile that bloomed on his face.

He swallowed thickly, forcefully dropping his hands from the bit of fabric around his neck that was now somewhat wrinkled from his hands. “So, Jemma. We are to be mm--. Tomorrow we are to be ma--”

“Married,” Jemma finished.

“Yes,” he said. “Married. And since we are to be--to be married, I guess we should get to know one another.”

“My mother would say it is improper.”

His eyes went wide. “Oh. Then--”

“But I don’t think so.”

“Oh,” he said, his shoulders relaxing. “Then, you said that you don’t play music. May I ask what you like to do?”

“Well I enjoy sci--” she caught herself mid-sentence, realizing she was stepping right into the territory of things she was not to talk about. She pressed her lips together, coming to sit on the recently-righted piano bench.

“Science?” he finished.

She snapped her face to his, looking for any sign of the worry or disgust her parents had assured would materialize. Instead, she saw a bright light appear behind his eyes, an excitement if she wasn’t mistaken.

“Yes. Science. Chemistry specifically but I am interested in the study of medicine as well,” she said, her voice gaining strength the more she talked.

“I don’t do well with--well, blood and things. But I do find chemistry fascinating.” He sat next to her on the bench. “Do forgive me if I’m being impolite here, but I would think your mother would be less accepting of the sciences than she would be of music.”

Jemma barked a laugh. “She’s accepting of neither. My father allows me what he calls my little projects, but that is pretty much all I am allowed. Though they aren’t aware of the books.”

“Books?” he asked curiously.

She felt a blush begin to warm her cheeks. “Oh, umm, I may have switched the covers on a few books to make them appear more acceptable if I were ever caught reading.”

Fitz grinned widely. “Brilliant,” he said. “No one should ever be deprived of books.”

“My thoughts exactly. I think my mother wishes me to sit quietly in a chair like an oversized doll until I die of boredom.”

“It seems you’ll die rather quickly like that.”

She laughed. “I would.”

“Thus the books, I guess.”

“Yes,” she smiled, “thus the books.”

A deep affection for her soon to be husband began to grow in her chest. She had only known him for a moment, but she wished to talk to him more forever. Forever, however, had to wait. With a loud bang, the door to the drawing room flew open and Jemma’s mother and father, along with a woman she assumed was Fitz’s mother, came rushing out of the room. 

“What is going on?” Lady Simmons scolded. Her face was flushed and her lips were so thin Jemma was sure they would disappear. 

Jemma opened her mouth, looking over quickly to see that Fitz had gone very pale, but he was standing straight at her side with his face set in a proper fashion. 

“Nevermind,” her father said, cutting off whatever row was about to occur in front of Fitz and his mother. “It’s a minute until the rehearsal begins. I think it best if we all make our way to the study.”

Mrs. Fitz nodded. “Yes. I quite agree. Wouldn’t want to keep Master Willsworth waiting now would we.”

The parents passing them and crossing to the room at the other end of the large entry, Jemma and Fitz were left to make up the rear. As they made to move, Fitz ran into the piano once more, this time succeeding in knocking over the vase.

“Oh, bloody--I mean I’m so sorry. I--” He fumbled to right the vase, picking up the single flower with slightly shaking hands.

“Fitz,” Jemma said, lightly placing her hand over his. “It’s alright.”

He stared at their hands for a moment and it was only as he looked that Jemma realized how improper she had just been. She quickly drew her hand away, folding them in front of her. Pink rose on her cheeks and she looked quickly at the laces on her shoes. When she chanced a glance upward she found that he was holding out the stem of the escaped baby’s breath to her. 

“For you,” he said shyly.

She took the flower with delicate fingers, trying not to smile too wide from the rush of affection she was feeling towards him. “Thank you, Fitz.”

He nodded, the corners of his lips upturned and the sweetest pink tint high on his cheeks. It truly brought out the blue of his eyes. All they had to do was get through the rehearsal and their family and Jemma could finally get to know this sweet man better. Everything just needed to go according to plan. 

* * *

To say that the rehearsal was not going very well would be an understatement. Fitz had been nervous that morning, and he felt he was justified in being so. It was the day before his wedding after all, he was meeting the woman he was going to marry for the first time, and he was certain that her family was merely using him for his money. All that paired with his normally nervous disposition meant that he had been a stumbling, panic stricken, mess all morning. But then he had met Jemma and the nerves blossomed into something else. He had been excruciatingly uncomfortable in her presence at first, certain that he had embarrassed himself at every turn, but then she had continued to speak and he had fallen head over heels for her. Now he was nervous for all the previous reasons but he was also anxious to impress Jemma Simmons and not push her away. However, as the rehearsal continued on into its third hour, Fitz felt he might be doing exactly that. 

It had started with the chair incident. They were told to get in position as if they were in the church, Fitz at the top of the room and Jemma at the door. They had to walk the whole ceremony like actors rehearsing a scene, and for some reason Fitz could not seem to avoid bumping into the stand-in pews. Then, when they had successfully gotten to the end of the aisle, there came the vows. They had gotten to the vows at the top of the first hour. And, two hours later, they were still at the vows.

“With this hand,” Master Willsworth said for probably the fiftieth time that morning.

“With this hand,” Fitz repeated, lifting up his hand.

Master Willsworth rubbed at his forehead. “Right,” he said.

“Right,” Fitz repeated.

Fitz felt an elbow lightly hit him in the ribs. 

“Hand,” Jemma whispered.

“Hand?” Fitz whispered back, his brow quirked into a question. Then it dawned on him and he quickly swapped which hand was up, nearly dropping the candle he was meant to be holding in the process. 

Master Willsworth sighed loudly, which Fitz didn’t think was overly necessary, but he understood the man’s reasons.

“Alright,” Master Willsworth said, his voice the same tone as pouring gravel, “After me. With this hand I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never be empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle, I will light your way into darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.”

Fitz gulped and took a steadying breath, quickly looking over to Jemma before opening his mouth to repeat the vows. She was looking at him with soft eyes and didn’t seem angry at him. She smiled at him encouragingly and it gave him the confidence to begin the vows with gusto.

“With this hand I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine.” He lifted the candle and stepped forward to light it on the one centered on the table before them. “With this candle,” he said, lowering the wick to light. When he pulled it away however, no flame had caught.

“This candle,” he repeated, lowering it once more. Again, it refused to light. “With. This. Candle.”

In that moment he wished that his own hair would light on fire instead of the wick, perhaps it could help save him from the mortification he felt wash over his head. He could hear Lady Simmons tsking away behind them and his own mother was shooting him a few reproachful looks.

He looked back at the parents sitting in the stand-in pews, at the frustration on their faces, and he tried to smooth it over with a little “hu” of a laugh. It didn’t seem to help much. 

There was a cough from Master Willsworth and Fitz shot his attention back forward, noticing that the candle had finally lit.

“Candle,” he repeated, flourishing the stick of wax. The movement promptly blew out the flame. 

“You’ve got to be joking,” Fitz huffed under his breath, though had the doorbell not gonged the quiet room still probably would have heard him.

Moments later, once Master Willsworth had taken them back to the lighting of the candle part of the vows, the Simmonses butler arrived in the room.

“A Lord Monroe is here sir,” the butler informed, standing just to the side of Lord Simmons’s chair.

“Monroe?” Lord Simmons inquired.

The butler nodded. “He says he’s here for the wedding.”

“Extended family?”

“Must be,” Lady Simmons said. She snapped her fingers. “Bring him in.”

Fitz had finally gotten the vows correct, at least up to the candle part, when Lord Monroe entered the room, halting the vows once more with the bursting open of the door.

Both Fitz and Jemma looked over their shoulder to see the new arrival, the movement once again blowing out Fitz’s candle. While he was looking away, Jemma quickly and carefully relit it with her own, cupping Fitz’s hand to steady it as she did.

“Thank you,” he whispered, looking back to her.

“Of course, Fitz.”

He smiled at her, but his attention was forcefully pulled away again by the booming voice of Lord Monroe.

“So sorry,” he said, running his hands back over his straight, dark, slick-backed hair. “I must have confused the date of the wedding. I hate to intrude.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Simmons said. “Come sit and watch the rehearsal.”

As if Fitz wasn’t nervous enough. Now he had this stranger watching his every move. And it didn’t help that Lord Monroe was the “tall dark and handsome” that was often described as desirable in the magazines and romance novels. 

“Do carry on,” Lord Monroe said in his money-filled tone of voice, rolling his hand in the air. 

“Shall we finally get back to it,” Master Willsworth said, his teeth clenched. “From the top.”

Fitz turned forward and nodded. “Yes. From the top.” He cleared his throat and took Jemma’s hand. “With this hand, I will lift your sorrows. Your candle--”

“Cup!”

“Cup! Your cup will never be empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle,” he lifted the candle, thanking the heavens it stayed lit, “I will light your way into darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.”

He felt rather good about that, if he did say so himself. That is until, while obtaining the ring from his pocket, he dropped the loop of gold upon the floor. He recovered it quickly, only to catch Lady Simmons’s skirt on fire. 

“My dress,” she cried, jumping to her feet. “My dress is on fire. Robert! Robert, put it out!”

Hell broke loose as Lord Simmons tried to stamp on the flame. Fitz quickly backed away, the recovered ring held tightly in his fist and his face a deep crimson. Part of him wanted to burst into tears. As his backside hit the table, he was thrown slightly off balance, but was righted by a steadying hand falling on his upper arm.

“Jemma--”

“It’s alright,” she said, as chaos continued on in front of them.

Just as Lady Simmons’s voice neared a critical pitch, the fire suddenly was drenched by the pouring of the cup of wine. The room went silent as Lord Monroe stood proudly with the chalice, his nose up in a confident sneer.

Before he could sing his own praises, Lord Monroe was shushed by Master Willsworth’s frustrated cry of, “Enough!” 

The room turned forward towards the outcry and Jemma lowered her hand from Fitz’s arm.

“We have practiced enough. I am announcing this disaster of a rehearsal finished. If you want this wedding to succeed, Mr. Fitz, learn your vows.”

And with that, Master Willsworth marched out of the room, leaving everyone else to stand there awkwardly until Fitz and his mother passed thanks and excused themselves as well.

“I will see you tomorrow, Jemma,” Fitz said as she walked him and his mother to the door. 

“I look forward to it,” she replied, extending her hand.

He could not tell if she was being honest with him when she said she looked forward to seeing him again, but he hoped beyond anything she was. He took her hand in his, wrapping the cold fingers in his warmth and bringing it to his lips. He pressed a gentle kiss to the back of her hand and bid her farewell for the night.

After arriving home, the moment he was free to wander, Fitz headed straight out for a walk. 

“You idiot,” he said to himself, replaying the events of the day over and over in his head. The more time passed, the more embarrassed he felt. Jemma must think him a right idiot. No matter how kind she had been, she at least must have been thinking it. Thinking him a right idiot. He had run into every piece of furniture in the house, had jumbled up the vows countless times, and had lit his future mother-in-law on fire. He wasn’t sure how much worse it could have gone. His mother had tried to comfort him, calling it pre-wedding jitters. But Fitz wasn’t sure pre-wedding jitters covered lighting your mother-in-law on fire!

The day was drawing to an end as Fitz wandered on, the night going an inky blue by the time he reached the woods at the edge of town. Normally, Fitz wouldn’t think to walk alone in the woods at night, but he was so deep in his own thoughts he barely registered where he was going. 

“Learn your vows,” he said to the trees. “I know the vows. It is just hard to say the vows after repeatedly embarrassing oneself in front of everyone.” 

He kicked a stump and a shooting pain ran up his leg, leaving him to swear loudly into the sky crosshatched by tree branches. 

“With this foot, I make a bloody fool of myself,” he grumbled. “See. Know the bloody vows.” He took a steadying breath, pinching his nose to try and steady his mind. “You know the vows, Fitz.”

He cleared his throat and grasped one of the outstretched branches before him. “With this hand I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never be empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle,” he broke off the branch and bent at the middle to pretend to light it, “With this candle, I will light your way into darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.”

He took the ring from his pocket, holding it with steady, no longer quivering, fingers and bent down to place it on a hand-shaped root in the ground.

As he placed the golden band upon the root, a great cool wind rose up from somewhere deeper in the forest. It shook the tops of the trees and carried the dead leaves up from off the ground, swirling them in the air around him. Fitz fell back onto the earthy floor in shock, his hands catching him from going completely backwards and hitting his head. In front of him, the root he had placed the ring shook slightly in the breeze. And then, one by one, each one of the five stems lowered and raised, like it was a hand stretching its fingers. 

The wind picked up its pace, whistling and whirling up leaves and branches as the ground began to quiver and split apart. Fright clenched at Fitz’s heart, pausing it's beating for one breathless moment before letting it loose, allowing it to pound at the cage of his ribs. To his amazement--for in spite of his horror he was amazed--the root began to pull itself out of the ground until Fitz could see for certain it was not a root at all. The dirt fell away from it, revealing it to be a pale blue hand. A pale blue hand attached to a corpse that was now rising out of the ground, rising up and away from its shallow grave until it was completely standing on two pale blue feet wrapped in satin slippers. 

It seemed it was the corpse of a bride. 

Fitz blinked at the figure before him, but he didn’t absorb a single feature. Instead, once he finally came to himself, he screamed into the night, fumbled onto his feet, and bolted in the direction of town. 

The branches tore at his clothes and he tripped over countless roots on his race out of the wood. It almost appeared like the forest was purposefully holding him hostage, clawing at him with its wooden hands, all while the ghostly bride floated in his direction, her tattered veil blowing behind her. Checking where the bride was at behind him, Fitz was not looking forward. One would think after spending a day running into pianos, pews, and tables, he would have learned to look where he was going. However, being chased by a walking corpse in a wedding dress the day before one’s wedding was likely to blank one’s mind. And so Fitz ran headlong into the trunk of a tree. 

He stumbled backwards, hand grabbing his face for any sign of a cut but finding none. He turned around, hoping to right himself but instead coming face to face with the bride.

He screamed again but she seemed unfazed. Instead she just smiled at him kindly and reached a bony hand to wipe away a bit of dirt from his face, the gold band he had placed upon her finger glittering in the moonlight. 

“I do,” she said, her voice as light as the blowing wind. 

Fitz paled. “What?” he squeaked. 

Before he knew what was happening, with leaves whipping around them, the branches of the woods creaking, and the wind whining in the dark, she placed a light kiss to his lips. And promptly, the moment he felt her lips on his, Fitz fainted. 


	2. Remains of the Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, guess who hasn't updated any fics in months? It's me, your girl. I am super super sorry about how freaking late I am with this chapter. Life has been bonkers lately, but I love this fic dearly and so here's the next chapter. Thank you to everyone for being ever so lovely. It means the world. Now, enjoy!

Somewhere above him, there was a light and the blurry sound of voices. It wasn’t until that moment that Fitz thought voices could be blurry but that was the only word he could think of at that moment. 

“Oh dear, is he alright?” 

“I think he’s waking up.”

“He’s cute.”

“What’s happening?”

“Daisy’s brought a live one.”

“Would you all hush.”

Fitz blinked his eyes open slowly. His eyelids felt sticky like they were dragging over his eyeballs with a greater amount of effort than normal. Paired with that was a rather nasty bruise on his forehead and a thumping at the base of his skull. He felt sick and dizzy and very tired, but all that momentarily drained away when he finally got his eyes to focus. Above him was the face he had seen in the forest: the face of a corpse bride. 

“Aaaargh!” Fitz screamed, the ill feelings all replaced with a rush of panic. He rolled over from his back to his knees before clambering up to his feet. All the blood rushed away from his head and he nearly fell back onto the floor. Luckily, however, he managed to keep himself standing with a great deal of concentration. Swaying slightly, but still standing. 

The bride hurried towards him, lightly taking one of his hands in hers. “It’s alright, don’t worry. You’re okay,” she said. 

“O-o-o-okay? I’m okay? I don’t even know who you all are. I don’t even know where I am!” Fitz looked around and felt another icy dagger of fear drive into his heart. He was surrounded by corpses in varying stages of decay. Some were still nearly normal looking while others were purely bone. He paled, feeling quite faint again. Feeling unbalanced, he couldn’t even bring himself to let go of the bride’s hand. 

“Am I dead?” he asked.

“Not yet,” the bride replied. For such an ominous statement, she said it with quite a cheery tone of voice. 

“Then where am I?” 

The bride let go of his hand, moving to hold her own together behind her back. “The underworld below the graveyard. I brought you here after you fainted.”

“Oh. Wonderful.” Fitz took a deep breath and then said the only other thing his mind could process at that moment. “You’re American?”

She seemed to find the question funny, breathing out a laugh. “Yes.”

“May I ask another question?” he asked. 

“Didn’t you just ask one?” the bride teased. 

Fitz chuckled nervously. “I guess I did. But, umm, no. My question was--uh--who are you?”

“You married him and he doesn’t even know your name” scoffed a skeleton behind the bar. 

Fitz shook his head. A bar? He was in a bar in the underworld and a skeleton had just talked. Which made absolutely no sense given he didn’t have lungs or vocal chords. Or a brain. Did he have a brain? Surely he couldn’t. This was all a bit too much. Wait...Fitz shook his head again...married?

The bride turned over her shoulder to the skeleton bartender. “Names didn’t come up.”

“I’m so sorry,” Fitz rushed, walking towards the bar, “did you say married?”

Instead of answering, the bartender simply looked over Fitz’s shoulder to the bride whose name Fitz still was not aware of. Well, Fitz assumed he looked at her. It was hard to tell given he didn’t have any eyes in his skull. 

“He knows we’re married. He’s just disoriented,” the bride said, crossing her arms. At the motion, Fitz fully realized that her left arm was completely bone. His stomach did a little flip flop as the thumping in his skull came back with a passion. 

“I need to sit,” he mumbled, falling onto an empty stool. Next to him sat a skeleton with an eyepatch and what looked like a pirate’s hat. Fitz’s eyes widened when the skeleton waved at him and he slowly dragged his gaze away and tried desperately not to be sick, putting his face in his hands and staring directly at the woodgrain of the bar.

“There there,” the bride comforted, coming to sit at Fitz’s other side, “you’re just overwhelmed--” She cut herself off and Fitz realized it was because she didn’t know his name either. He nearly laughed despite the situation being very far from funny. 

“You don’t know his name do you,” the skeleton bartender said. 

“I told you, Benny, there wasn’t much talking.” 

“Fitz,” he choked out. “My name’s Fitz.”

“Daisy,” the bride said. She smiled brightly and Fitz was surprised that it helped calm his nerves. Now at least he knew the name of the walking talking cadaver in a wedding dress he was apparently married to. That fact still hadn’t settled in, probably because it just couldn’t possibly be true. He was supposed to be married tomorrow not tonight! And he wasn’t supposed to marry Daisy. He was supposed to be married to Jemma Simmons.

Fitz’s heart dropped. 

Oh god, Jemma. What was he going to do? He had to get out of...wherever he was. Was there more underworld beyond the bar or was the bar all there was? There had to be more to death than a decaying bar, surely.

“This isn’t real,” Fitz said, shaking his head as he struggled to his feet, nearly falling off his stool and into the pirate with the eyepatch. Dear God, what was his night? His legs were shaking and the feeling that at any moment he was going to fall flat on the floor again had not even come close to wearing off. Would it ever? He was currently at a bar in the underworld with every eye in the place on him, some of which weren’t even in their owner’s heads! One person had their’s soaking in a water glass and even that was trained in his direction.

As Fitz struggled to his feet, Daisy stood up as well, her face turning gentle with what he realized was understanding. 

“This is real, Fitz. Believe me, I know it is hard to comprehend, but I will help you,” she said. She placed her hands on his arms and Fitz felt a chill run down his spine. However, in spite of the cold that zinged through his nervous system and the fact that one of his arms was being lightly caressed by uncovered bones, he did get that sense of comfort from Daisy again. 

“I understand how you feel,” she continued, “when I got here I was terrified and horribly heartbroken.”

Fitz looked at Daisy, a bit of curiosity warming up the cold the fear had left. “How did you get here?”

He quickly realized he must have said something wrong as sadness pulled down the corner’s of Daisy’s mouth. 

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. I do apologize for my rudeness. I didn’t mean any offense--”

“It’s alright, Fitz. The answer is simple really.”

“Oh?”

“I died.”

“Oh.”

She smiled shyly, looking at her dirty satin shoes. “But I guess you figured that out already.”

“Well, I figured most people had to die to come here,” he replied, “it’s why I’m not completely certain that I’m alive.”

“Oh, you are alive,” Daisy assured, bringing her hands down to her sides. “You’re just the first breather that has ever been down here.”

“That’s...nice,” Fitz grimaced, but he quickly tried to hide it. “So, can I ask how you died? If it is a sensitive subject you don’t have to tell me.”

Daisy wrung her hands but shook her head. “It’s not necessarily a sensitive subject. Just more of a long story.”

“But an interesting one,” the bartender added.

Both Daisy and Fitz turned to Benny, Fitz with curiosity and Daisy with her brows pointed in a warning. 

“It’s a heartbreaking tale,” he continued, ignoring the bride’s warning completely, “of young love, whirlwind romance, and murder.”

“Murder?” Fitz spluttered, his wide eyes snapping to Daisy. She had her chin up high and her own gaze trained on the skeleton behind the bar. She dropped her shoulders as she dared a look at Fitz before turning to sit on the edge of the bar. 

“Well, go on,” she resigned, flicking her wrist at Benny, “you’re better at telling it anyway.”

With an excited clattering of bones, Benny leaned across the bar and as he did every person leaned closer in response. Despite the fact that the entirety of the bar had already gathered around Fitz’s welcome, they somehow managed to gather nearer still. Leaning their bony elbows on tables and fixing their eyes--or lack thereof--on Benny, the patrons of the underworld saloon awaited one of their favorite tales. 

Fitz, meanwhile, decided to find a seat at the bar. It was no use trying to escape the underworld now, not while his head was still spinning. Firstly, he had no idea how he would manage it and where he was going and secondly, he couldn’t deny that he was interested in how Daisy managed to get where she was.

With a few dramatic coughs, Benny began the tale. 

“It was a crisp October morning when the passenger ship  _ Zephyr  _ docked in London harbor. It had just completed its maiden voyage over from America. With the wind whipping at their heels, Miss Daisy Johnson and her family stepped onto the gangway. Her father was an American doctor, big name over there. Wealthy, powerful, a name that could cross the Atlantic.”

As Benny spoke, a foggy newspaper headline from a few years previously suddenly materialized in the recesses of Fitz’s memory. It was all still a bit murky, but Fitz thought he remembered a little of the story. Big American names arriving in London, the excitement around it. And if he remembered rightly, the slightly tragic end. However, he couldn’t remember the faces of those involved or really how the story ended. With a slight shake of his head, Fitz refocused on Benny, knowing that whatever part of the story he was forgetting the bartender was sure to cover it. Something also told him that there was more to it than what the papers had printed. 

“But the Johnsons weren’t the only Americans on that ship of course,” Benny continued, his bony fingers pointing out in front of him to pictures of the story only he could see. “There were other peoples of importance. Some to the general public and some just to our tale. Like the handsome man who just happened to bump into our lovely Daisy at the docks. American too and as striking as they come. With his kind apologies and charming smile, it’s no wonder why she fell for him. He’s everyone's type. 

They continued to see one another, talking all the time, exchanging letters and the like. And one day, after their two weeks of letters and declarations of love, he asked her to marry him. Of course she said yes to that bewitching smile of his, but her father was much less entranced. She only just met him, but even that wouldn’t have been as bad if he weren’t so poor and the marriage not arranged. So daddy dearest threw off the whole engagement with the finality of a strong armed  _ no _ . But who needs a father’s approval when one is so desperately in love.”

Turning his gaze to Daisy, Fitz saw she was looking at her fingers, twisting the golden ring meant for Jemma around and around the bone. And suddenly Fitz remembered the headlines. The scandal.  **Daughter of American Millionaire Runs Off and Elopes** . It was thought possible that she and the man she had been seeing ran away to some far off place, somewhere tropical with the magic of romance. Of course it was possible that there was a much darker outcome for the star-crossed lovers. Seeing Daisy sitting atop the stained bar in her earth covered wedding dress endlessly spinning that ring, Fitz realized that their true ending was not as happy as the papers had wished it to be. Darker outcome it was. 

Benny crossed his arms on the bar, his voice going as low and soft as fog. “No, when you’re in love you don’t need approval or a proper party or a new wedding dress. You see, a hamidown gown and a prearranged time and place does just fine. But do you know what you do need, at least according to Mister Marvelous Smile? Money. Enough for train tickets or perhaps a boat ride and a bit extra to keep yourselves sitting pretty. Family jewels and some gold does just the trick. And Daisy could provide that no problem. And provide them she did. 

The night was cool, the wind nearly tipping the scales over to cold, but our bride didn’t mind. She had the excitement to warm her as she waited under that tree in those woods. And soon she would have her love. All she had to do was wait. And wait. And wait. She waited until the moon was full up in the sky and the cold had just started to bore into her excitement. But then she heard it. Just through the trees. A cracking of a twig, the crunching of leaves. Could it be him? Her love? The start of the rest of her life? She stood high up on her toes, peeking around to see him when suddenly she felt a tug of rope around her neck. And everything went black.”

Benny sighed and Fitz thought he heard someone sniffle before he resumed the story. Fitz, however, wasn’t sure he wanted to hear much more. But Benny continued on anyway. 

“Now after our dear Daisy had wilted, she opened her eyes to find she was dead as dead as the proverbial doornail. Came down here with her heart in a thousand pieces and barely a bit of hope left in her bones. But our lovely corpse bride doesn’t just lay down and die, metaphorically of course. No, she went back up and vowed that she would find love again. And so just as she had that fateful night, she waited under that same very tree. Waited for her true love to come set her free, to be with her for the rest of their nights. And come along he did, didn’t you Mister Fitz? Said the vows and everything.”

“You said them beautifully,” Daisy added shyly. 

There was a scuffling of bar stools and chairs as once again every eye went to Fitz. What little energy he had managed to gain during the pause of listening to the story suddenly all drained from his body once more. Chills zipped across the surface of his skin and the world went topsy turvy again. He couldn’t even take the complement of finally having said the vows correctly. He had been imagining Jemma when he was wandering in those woods, had thought he was talking to a tree root. He hadn’t meant to say the words to Daisy, but he had. And now here he was. Surely this contract he had made with the vows wasn’t sound? However, after everything that just had been explained to him, how in heaven’s name was he supposed to just take it all back? He couldn’t possibly be that cruel to someone obviously so kind. But what was his alternative?

Looking around the room with his eyes dilated in fear and without knowing what else to do, Fitz stood up from his stool, tried and failed to say something, and instead bolted from the room. It no longer mattered he that he didn’t have a plan, he simply just had to flee.

As it turned out, there was in fact more to the underworld than a bar. Actually, it extended quite a ways, farther than Fitz could see or fully appreciate, even if he had been in a state to take it all in. It seemed there was a whole village below the surface of the living world. Fitz didn’t understand how exactly it all came to be but it was almost a reflection of what was up on the surface, as if someone had copied the town up above and sunk it below the layers of dirt. It did however suffer from its sinking. Though still beautiful in its own way, with its carefully placed bricks and delicate glass window panes, the walls were plastered with the grime of dirt and time. Despite the lack of sunlight, vines of ivy and suffocated flowers bloomed across the buildings like blood stains and the diamonds of the window panes were as dusty as a forgotten book. Though the ceiling of packed earth seemed a mile or two above the place, it still loomed overhead and set the expanse of the town in gloom as if it were permanently dusk. 

Despite knowing its reflection relatively well, Fitz was still incredibly lost within the labyrinth of the buildings. The fact that he was nearly out of breath from fleeing didn’t help the confusion as his mind couldn’t seem to formulate a reasonable thought let alone a clear sense of direction. He was in the underworld for God's sake! Was he really expected to read street names?

Stumbling up a narrow pathway, Fitz ran headlong into the front door of a tall building. He’d made quite the mess on his way through the town, knocking over displays and things here and there. He had hastily picked them all up but it left him feeling even more bruised, confused, and exhausted. How long had he been here? Hell, how long had he been passed out in that bar? He just needed to get home. Needed to assure his mother he was alright. Needed to find Jemma and explain. Would she even believe him if he told her? Thinking of her encouraging smile and her lamp light eyes and the way she had looked at him as they talked, a warm feeling of comfort soothed the chills peppering Fitz’s body. How could he have been so doubtful of her true kindness. She would no doubt be confused by his adventures, he was himself, but something told him she would believe him. He just needed to get to the surface and to do that he needed to go up. 

With very little grace--a trend for the day--Fitz tumbled up the highest hill he could find and subsequently met his face forcefully with the door of the tallest building on said hill. With the image of Jemma’s face floating in his mind, he righted himself as best he could and began doing the only thing he could think of in his dazed state. He began to climb. This proved much more difficult than he had expected. His lean frame wasn’t exactly weak, for he could do a fair few push ups if pressed, but it definitely was not made for climbing up the side of a house to escape the underworld. Especially when there weren’t any footholds and only plantlife to hold on to. It also didn’t help that his head had finally realized what it felt like to be a gong. 

Fitz was about five feet off the ground when he heard footsteps behind him. He clung to the surprisingly sturdy vines for dear life as he looked over his shoulder at the person below him.

“Fitz, are you trying to climb that building?” Daisy asked, one corner of her lips higher than the other. 

He looked from her to his vine-filled hands and back again. “Er, yes. Yes I am. It’s proving more difficult than I imagined.”

“I can see that.” 

“How did you find me?” he huffed heavily, for his hands were slipping.

With a peek over his shoulder he caught her grinning fully now, readjusting the box she was holding on her hip. “You left a few hastily put together shop fronts in your wake. Madame Merveille was not very happy with how you organized her display of recovered Merveille.”

“I was in a hurry. Normally I have a better eye for such things,” Fitz said, leaning his forehead against the wall and smiling. 

Daisy giggled again as she moved closer. With a large smile, she lightly placed her non-bony hand upon his shoe. “You know,” she said, the silliness slipping from her voice a bit, “If you’re wanting to get to the surface there are better ways.”

A blush creeped up Fitz’s neck and lit a flame of pink on the tips of his ears. “I wasn’t--I was just--I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright. I’m sure you have your reasons. If you hop down from that vine perhaps I could help. I am your wife after all.”

Fitz coughed, trying to clear away the lump of unease that had risen up in his throat. “Yes yes, of course. Let me just--” And with a little  _ humph _ Fitz landed back upon the cobbled street.

“Shall we sit?” Daisy asked, nodding to a bench over by the cliffside at the end of the road. 

With a quick tilt of his chin, he followed in Daisy’s elegant footsteps. He was taken aback by her light footing. It was almost as if she glided over the ground, her dress masking her feet and her veil and dark locks floating behind her in a non-existent wind. In the woods it had been terrifying, having her following behind him in such an unearthly way. But here, in the quiet of the dead, it was more magical than scary. 

“I have a gift for you,” she said once they had sat upon the rusted bench. 

“A gift?” Fitz asked. 

Her eyes twinkled. “A wedding present.”

“Oh, I--I--I’m so sorry. I didn’t get you anything,” he stammered nervously, tugging at his ear. But Daisy just laughed a laugh like church bells on a spring morning.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Fitz. I didn’t expect you to. You are still getting acclimated after all.”

Indeed he was. Hell, he still wasn’t a hundred percent positive he wasn’t just hallucinating. 

“Now,” Daisy continued, tapping lightly on the lid of the box in her lap, “careful when you open it.”

Again swallowing his unease, Fitz accepted the box as Daisy moved it to the space of bench between them. As Daisy had instructed, he carefully undid the ribbon and opened the lid of the box. He had barely caught a glimpse of what appeared to be bones when the box began to shake, the bones drawing together as if by magic. In a matter of moments the bones were put together like a puzzle and out jumped a skeletal dog, completing the trick with a happy little yelp before politely sitting. Something about the way the dog tilted it’s head seemed so familiar that Fitz was taken aback. Then it hit him. 

“Cosmos?” Fitz said cautiously as the pup waved its bony tail across the cobblestones. The dog barked again, this time jumping so it’s paws landed on his knees. Seeing his childhood dog--even in skeleton form--caused happiness to bloom in Fitz’s chest. He laughed wildy, patting the dog's head with pure joy. “I can’t believe it’s you!” he said. The dog responded with a cheerful bark. 

Daisy smiled at the reunion. “He’s a favorite down here, you know,” she said. “Everyone loves him. He even has a special spot in the bar to sit. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure he has a special spot in almost every building.”

“How did you know he was mine?” Fitz asked. 

“Well, when I brought you into the bar he started barking his skull off. Ran around you so much I could barely get close enough to see if you were conscious or not. Had to have him play dead to calm him down. It’s why he’s in the box you see.”

Proving her point, Cosmos began to run laps around Fitz’s legs before nuzzling his calf. 

“Thank you,” he said. He looked back to Daisy, catching her eye before she sent her own gaze back at Cosmos. 

“You’re welcome. Now,” she continued, her hands curling together in her lap, “can I ask why you were trying to go back to the surface?”

Fitz blushed with a pink-tinted guilt. He could answer honestly, tell her about Jemma and how this was all a very unfortunate misunderstanding. The fact that Daisy had given him back Cosmos had only complicated the matter, for it confirmed her kindness. Would she help him if he told her his true motivations? With his nerves so high, his fear so strong, and his brain still muddled, Fitz once again acted not-so-sensibly. For you see, he decided to lie. 

“I need to tell my mother what has happened. I was going to see if she wants to come here and meet you.”

Daisy looked at him curiously, but in the end seemed to accept his story. “Well I’m not sure if she would be allowed down here. I broke quite a few rules bringing you. Coulson is only understanding to a point. Though I am sure he would give us a day pass to inform your mother of our marriage. Well, a night pass given the time.”

Just catching himself from questioning her “us” statement, Fitz bobbed his head in approval. Of course she would want to come to the surface to meet his mum if the other option wasn’t viable. He figured he would just have to find a way to speak to Jemma privately, but he decided to think things through one thought at a time. Normally, he was much better at problem solving, but tonight was another scale of problem entirely. 

With Cosmos at their heels, Fitz and Daisy began their journey towards Coulson’s shop and hopefully towards the surface. 

“Who is Coulson,” Fitz asked as they walked, following his one thing at a time policy. 

Daisy smiled brightly. “He’s in charge of record keeping, manning the stairwell, and a whole bunch of other things. Or as he puts it:  _ The navigational director of the dead and other such nonsense.  _ He’s intimidating, but much nicer than you think. Just state your reason and I’m sure he’ll let you up. And you’re with me so that will help your case quite a bit.”

“You know him well?”

“Oh yes,” Daisy replied, moving her veil over her shoulder, “He’s like a father to me. Before I went back upstairs I helped him in his shop. He was the one that gave me the permission to go. Wasn’t thrilled at the idea, but I’m guessing he knew I would find a way back there anyway. I know it would have hurt him if I had just run off without telling, so it was nice to have his blessing.”

It took seemingly no time at all to get to Coulson’s shop, Daisy knowing her way around the maze of buildings much better than Fitz. The door opened with a loud creak and the chiming of a bell, but Daisy called into the depths of the shop all the same.

“Coulson, it’s Daisy,” she called as Cosmos darted into the room before them. “Fitz, just wait here and I’ll go retrieve him. He’s probably in the back.”

Waiting in the center of the entryway and staring about the place, the room almost took Fitz’s breath away. He had never seen so much stuff crammed into one spot. And yet, it didn’t feel the least bit disorganized. Books sat upon shelves that reached for the heavens--or above ground in this case--and they almost appeared to defy gravity what with the way some of them were stacked. There were old odds and ends, empty ink pots and pieces of parchment, what appeared to be an entire suit of armor equipped with a shield and fitted for a proper medieval knight. There were high dusty windows on either side of the room bathing the place where Fitz stood with cool ghostly light. Candles were strewn about, all burning with dull flames, and the competing tones of color clashed in battle on the walls of books. It seemed it was undecided as to whether the place was cozy or cool, comforting or unnerving. After everything the night had offered, Fitz rather liked the place. It seemed to perfectly capture the feelings warring in his heart as well and somehow settled both. Meanwhile, as Fitz stared about the room, Cosmos quickly found a nice place to lay down, seeming rather at home as he curled up under one of the large windows and barked when he was comfortable. 

So focused on his surroundings, Fitz startled when the curtain separating the back of the shop with the front was pulled open with a mighty flourish. Appearing from behind the fabric was a skeleton with glasses perched on his narrow nasal bone and phalanges full of books, Daisy trailing behind with her arms crossed. 

“You’ve been up there for four years,” the skeleton said, dropping the books on a desk before climbing up a ladder. “You’ve just gotten back. Thanks for coming to me right away by the way. So glad you didn’t stop by Benny’s first or anything so that my records would be harder to log.”

“I’m sorry, Coulson. It was right next to the stairs and Fitz was harder to carry than I expected.”

Coulson threw down a book before jumping off the ladder. “Fitz?”

“The man I married.”

“That you--Who’s--oh.”

The skeleton stopped where he stood at the foot of the ladder, looking Fitz up and down. It still freaked him out quite a bit when people down here did that; when they looked at him without eyes. It was just a tad disconcerting. 

“I’m guessing you’re Fitz,” Coulson said, trapezing deftly around a stack of knick-knacks with his leather-bound tome in tow. 

“I am, yes. How’re you?”

“Well, I’m dead, so there’s that.”

Chest tightening, Fitz opened his mouth to try and cover the blunder, but the director of the dead just chuckled, slamming the large book on his desk before sitting behind it. 

“Don’t worry Fitz, I’ve been dead a long enough time to not be so shy about it. You on the other hand, still have a beating heart I see.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I’m guessing it’s been beating out of your chest the whole night.”

“Yes, sir,” Fitz breathed, relieved again that someone knew how he felt. 

The skeleton began stamping things into what appeared to be a log of some sorts, but Fitz could have sworn he saw him shoot a look at Daisy. The way she crossed her arms a bit tighter, she must have gotten whatever message he was sending. 

“So,” Coulson continued, looking back at his log, “why do you want to go back up when you just came down?”

“Fitz wants to tell his mother where he’s gone and also introduce me to her.”

Tilting his head up, Coulson looked at Fitz over the rim of his glasses. “I see. She must be worried about you.”

Fitz nodded several times in quick succession. “Yes. I left in a rather foul mood as well.” Then, with his anxiety calming a bit now that he was more used to being, well, in the underworld, Fitz thought up something beyond his one step at a time process. He tapped his coat pockets as well as his trousers. “Blast! I even lost my house key trampling through the woods the way I did. Will probably have to climb through the window just to tell her I’m alright.” He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

Daisy smiled and looked about to say something funny when she was cut off by Coulson. 

“Well you better be quick about it, the both of you,” he said, shutting the log with a great thump, “I’ve given you until midnight to get there and inform her of what has occurred. An hour, I believe, is plenty of time for that.”

“An hour?” Daisy said, “but--”

“An hour for a day pass is much more than one normally gets while also being allowed to be corporeal. Remember I made Robbie visit through a horse and buggy. And, I already let you stay up there for years.”

“Frozen and half buried in dirt.”

“As you wanted.”

The two stared at one another while Fitz stood awkwardly in the space between before he finally cleared his throat to break the tension. 

“An hour is a generous amount of time and I guess we shouldn’t be wasting it. Thank you Coulson for your help. Umm, I hate to be a bother, but would you look after Cosmos while we’re away.”

“Of course. And Cosmos is more than welcome to stay. He’s been doing so without permission for years now. He likes to sit in that window and chew on old quills,” Coulson said. He then pulled out an ornate key with a black ribbon tied in a loop on the end and handed it to Daisy. “Remember, pull the ribbon twice to get back to the door. It’s linked to the pair of you, but if you both don’t have your hands on it it’ll be a far less comfortable return for the person who doesn’t.”

And with that warning, they started on their way to the land of the living.

* * *

It was much warmer than Fitz expected it to be when they arrived back to the surface. Maybe it was still cold, but by comparison to where he had been it felt a lot warmer. However, what really drew his attention was the sky. The moment he could see stars up above him he vowed to never take them for granted again. 

“The air’s better up here, isn’t it?” Daisy said softly, looking at Fitz rather than at what was up above them. 

“I never appreciated the smell of trees more than I do right now.”

Daisy chuckled that church bell laugh of hers, folding her arms as they began to walk towards the town. 

They talked as they made their way through the woods, Fitz informing Daisy of his mother’s kind disposition when she asked. He also mentioned a few childhood memories involving Cosmos and even brought up his favorite musical compositions.

“You play the piano?” Daisy said, her face lighting up happily at the new discovery. 

Fitz looked at her in surprise. “Yes. And you?”

“I’ve played since I was little. My mother taught me the basics before she realized how naturally it came to me. She hired a tutor after that.” 

“I’m much the same. Well, apart from the tutor. Couldn’t afford one when I was small.” 

“Still, at least you had music. Fancy tutors or not, at least you had that.”

“Yes,” he said, his heart warming at the memory of his mother next to him on the piano bench, gently guiding his small fingers into proper positions and singing as he played. “I am grateful for that.”

It was then that he remembered the conversation he had had with Jemma just a few hours before, how her mother refused to let her play the piano. He remembered the lovely look in her eyes when she caught him playing. She had been fighting a smile when she had caught him. Why, exactly, he wasn’t sure, but having gotten to know her he knew the smile was kind one. For she was kind to her very core, he was certain of that now. And they talked about science after that. God, it felt like years ago that he laughed with her beside that beautiful piano. With her in his mind’s eye, he couldn’t help but wish to laugh with her again soon. Perhaps they could simply talk for hours under the stars or in the sunshine or anywhere out of doors really. He and Jemma, sitting on the garden grass, talking under a tree, and among all the flowers in the world. It sounded rather like heaven.

After a few silent minutes of walking, Fitz and Daisy arrived at the bridge connecting the woods to the town, their feet finally hitting a cobbled path as they crossed the river. Straight ahead led to Fitz’s home while right led to Jemma. He stopped suddenly, his breath clamped halfway up his throat as he considered his options: continue the lie or go with the actual route to see his mother. 

Feeling the ticking of the town clock and breathing in the sweet life-giving air around him, Fitz went right. 

They reached the grand Simmons House without trouble, walking quickly beside one another until they stood before the steps. 

“I shall see if mother left the door unlocked,” Fitz said hastily as Daisy moved to walk up the steps. “You just stay here a moment. It’s unlikely she would leave the door open so late.”

“Even if you were missing?” Daisy asked.

“I take late walks now and again. She’ll be worried, but not enough to break routine. She also thinks I would have the house key, but like a right idiot I lost it in my run through the woods.”

“I remember you saying. I am sorry about that,” Daisy said with a soft laugh, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Fitz kindly waved off the apology with his hand. “No worries. No one's fault. Now I shall just--” He flew up the stairs and grabbed onto the large brass door handle. With great care, he tried the door, desperately hoping that no one would hear the noise. Just as he expected, the door was locked.

“Well, I’ll have to climb in,” Fitz said. His voice was a bit shaky as he came to terms with what he would have to do next. But, he was running out of time and it was his only way of seeing Jemma. 

“You can’t knock?” Daisy asked, rushing after him as he sprinted to the back of the house.

“No no no, don’t want to call and wake the servants or anything.” God, he left quite a lot of holes in his lie, but he was coming up with it rather quickly and lying never was his strong suit. Shaking his hands in hope of warring off worry, Fitz scanned the back of the house and prayed he could locate Jemma’s window. He couldn’t tell which one for certain was hers so he simply decided on the one that was open. He’d think about avoiding the other--far less friendly--household members if the visit came to it. 

“Are you sure you can climb that, Fitz?” Daisy asked, staring up at the window alongside him. 

“I believe so. My performance trying to reach the surface was dismal, but in all fairness there weren’t any footholds.”

Daisy raised a brow. “And there are here?”

“Plenty. See the brickwork and window ledges. I should be fine.”  _ Right? _ He added in his head. 

“Well, be careful.”

Shaking his hands and giving himself one more internal self-assurance, Fitz began to climb. 

* * *

After the grand doors had shut, Jemma held the hand Fitz kissed tightly to her chest for the rest of the evening. It was her only comfort in what became an absolutely dreadful series of events. Her mother refused to talk of anything other than Fitz’s mistakes, her desire to simply get the wedding over with, and how awful it was that they would have to be linked to a family so below their station. With everything that had happened at the rehearsal, the things her mother had been saying before only became more poisonous. 

The first few remarks, Jemma had responded with gentle defenses. She assured her mother that Fitz was probably just nervous, for she had been herself. Silently, she thought Fitz did rather well all things considered. If she had had to face her mother unprepared she would have made just as many mistakes. However, as the stream of insults and complaints continued to flow, Jemma’s tongue sharpened until she was sent to her room for her insolence and language. She simply would not allow her mother to say such things about Fitz, especially things that could not be helped. His past was not a badge of shame and the fact his money was newly made was not something to be sneered at. But what truly made her blood boil was when both her mother and father thought him weak, for she herself thought Fitz had far more strength of character and heart than the pair of them could ever wish to possess. 

And then dinner came and with it an even more unwelcome surprise. Sitting just across the dining table from her was none other than Lord Monroe. There was something about the suddenly appearing guest that filled Jemma with unease. When looking into his handsome eyes in greeting, she rather felt like she was falling down a cold dark well, and his smile set her own teeth on edge. And she didn’t much like the way he talked. Every consonant that clicked his tongue felt trained and he often smiled when he thought he said something clever. And what was worse, her parents ate it all up like it was cake and strawberry jam. 

When dinner was over, Jemma complained of a headache and excused herself from further activities, leaving her parents happily alone to chat with Lord Monroe. The headache wasn’t a complete lie for she felt if she spent another minute listening to Lord Monroe speak of his hunting trip in Africa, either her head would explode or her choice of language would become quite colorful. 

Anna helped her ready for bed, undoing her laces, dressing her in her nightgown, and taking the pins from her hair. Once those simple things were done, Jemma kindly asked to be alone. She didn’t even need to continue the lie of her headache, for Anna understood completely and left her to her own devices. 

Feeling tired and a bit hateful at the latter half of her day, Jemma opened the windows to further spite her mother and stared at the dark tapestry of stars up above the town, holding tightly to that love-touched hand. The night air was quite refreshing and the sky such a wonderful shade of inky blue that she could make out complete constellations. She breathed in deeply, filtering out the stuffy perfume of the house with the gentle scent of trees carried over by the wind. How lovely was the open air. She felt much less angry then and returned to her vanity table to wash the rest of the day from her face. Jemma couldn’t quite say how long she spent sitting there, for even after she had finished cleansing her skin she sat looking past her reflection and into her own thoughts. She was quickly broken out of her musings, however, when she heard someone tumble through her window and onto her floor. 

“Fitz?” Jemma exclaimed, jumping up from her stool to help him back onto his feet. 

“Jemma? Oh, thank God this is your room.” 

He sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging with relief as he took her in. His eyes were very wide, the blue alright and as happy as a summer sky. However, there were dark circles underneath said eyes and his breathing was coming in short little bursts, but he looked very pleased to see her. 

Although he was now back on his feet, Jemma’s hands remained at his elbows.

"What are you doing? Are you alright? You're covered in dirt."

"Jemma--I don't even know where to begin. Tonight has been terrifying."

"More terrifying than our wedding rehearsal," Jemma teased, her bright smile seeming to unravel the knot of anxiety that had tied itself in Fitz’s heart. 

The laugh that escaped him then was like tonic for the both of their nerves. "Somehow, yes."

"I can tell. The colors all drained from your face. You look like you've seen a ghost."

Surprisingly, Fitz chuckled. “Close, but not quite.”

Jemma’s eyes narrowed as concern gave way to curiosity.

“I've just come from the underworld,” he explained in haste.

“Underworld?” she said, her mouth falling open. “Do you mean like you died and came back to life.”

“No. More like I was alive but surrounded by the dead. I got a day pass to come back up here.”

She continued to look at him aghast and utterly confused. “A day pass?”

“Yes--well I guess technically a night pass, but that’s besides the point. I got it to come and see you. They'll take me back soon and there isn't much time, but I just had to assure you I was alright.”

Jemma brushed off some of the dirt still lingering on Fitz’s shoulders and face. She was still completely taken aback by everything he had just said, but she could tell by the look in his eyes and the feeling in his voice that he was earnest. “Well, I'm very happy that you’re alright. Can I help in any way?” she asked, her face very close to his.

"I don't know. I will try and find a way back. There are a few things I need to sort through but then..."

"Yes?" Jemma's eyes were wide, her face full of loving concern. Fitz looked as though his heart just might burst with his affections for the woman in front of him and she looked at him in quite the same way.

"Then we shall be married. If you'll still have me."

"Of course I'll still have you, Fitz. I--"

Whatever Jemma was about to say, she didn't get to say it as the rest of the windows in the room flew open in a rage filled wind. Fear clenching her heart, Jemma gripped tighter to Fitz.

The room went deadly cold as the figure stood framed in the billowing curtains. Her eyes looked like dark flames and her pale blue skin seemed to glow white hot as her mouth curled in a hurt rage. In her hand she gripped an ornate key so tightly it looked like it would leave a mark on her palm.

“Time to go,” she said. Jemma had expected the voice to be angry and yet it seemed more sad than anything else. As if hearing the unearthly figure’s declaration, the town clock began to chime it’s twelve strokes for midnight. 

Reluctantly letting go of Jemma, Fitz took a step toward the figure. “Daisy, wait--”

She didn’t, and with two tugs on the ribbon they were pulled out the window and back to the underworld. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at @springmagpies!! 💕


	3. Tears to Shed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken me for freaking ever to get back to. AU August happened and all of my WIPs ended up taking a back seat. But it is Spooky Season now and I am so freaking excited to get back to this fic! I hope you enjoy this return chapter!! 👻💛

Fitz really didn’t know what to say. He followed Daisy at a quick pace as she wound her way down the steep stone paths of the underworld, her dress billowing behind her. She moved with such a trained grace that, with the added effect of her tattered veil gently catching a nonexistent wind and the delicate blue hue to her skin, she looked like a butterfly floating along the cobblestones. Fitz tried to keep to her side, but continually fell behind to watch her white tulle wings flit about before him. 

Not once during this time did she turn around to face him. Instead, she kept her chin up high and her sattin slippered feet ever marching on. Fitz could do nothing but stumble along behind her, his scuffed shoes catching on tree roots and his limbs awkwardly swinging about his person. 

His organs were twisting tightly around inside him and when he wasn’t tripping over his own feet he was wringing his tie in his hands. His mother would have had a fit had she caught the state he was in. Not only was his tie more wrinkled than a rotting apple core, but he was covered from head to toe in dirt. Daisy had pulled the black ribbon on the key without him, meaning he had been dragged across the ground like a scared sack of flour. He could feel a stinging sensation prickling a spot above his right eyebrow and was surprised that he didn’t feel any blood dripping down the side of his face.  _ The dirt must have clogged it all up, _ he thought grimly. 

The bruises no doubt blooming across his skin nor the cut on his head were either of the major things on his mind, however. The thing that was really twisting him all up inside like a wrung out rag was gliding away before him, her eyes purposefully avoiding his.

“Daisy,” he called timidly, once more trying to move fast enough to walk beside her. 

She took a sudden turn down a side street and managed in the process to gain a bit more ground. Fitz, meanwhile, in an attempt to make the unexpected turn was left to skid into another shop display. Somewhere in his mind he hoped it wasn’t the same one he had knocked over earlier. God, he really was making quite the mess tonight. In more ways than one. 

Despite feeling like he had run into every building in the underworld, Fitz could not give a clear answer to the question of where he was. He was banged up and anxious and was following Daisy blindly. It wasn’t until he heard a familiar barking sound somewhere out in front of them that he gained any sense of direction. He realized with a jolt that they were outside of Coulson’s shop. 

Walking into the high windowed room, the corpse bride still summoned a smile for the bony animal that padded up to her shins. She knelt down and patted Cosmos lightly upon the skull with her flesh-covered hand, kissing the tip of his nasal bone. Fitz, meanwhile, stood fidgeting in the doorway, smoothing his tie over and over again before clasping his hands together to make the nervous habit halt. 

“How was the world of the living?” came a voice from behind a teetering tower of books. There was a rustling of papers and a very loud thump.

“It was fine,” Daisy said over the din, “the sky was beautiful.”

Coulson’s head emerged from behind the desk. “It always is when you haven’t seen it in awhile. I, myself, haven’t seen it for centuries. My, would I like to though.”

“It was covered with stars and there was a wind that smelled and sounded like trees.”

The director of the underworld took a breath, filling lungs that no longer existed with air he could not truly breathe. Cosmos whined at Daisy’s feet, dropping on his belly to rest his jawbone upon his paws. 

When he had first arrived in the underworld, Fitz had spent most of his minimal remaining energy trying to get his grip upon his own chaotic thoughts. Now, watching as Coulson listened to the description of a world he had left long ago, he could suddenly appreciate the weight of all the dirt above them. He looked to Daisy and his heart buckled to his belt.

“Do you two have the key?” the skeleton asked.

“Yes,” Daisy said, extending out her palm, “Here you are.”

Coulson took the ornate key, but his hand hesitated a moment over Daisy’s. He looked carefully over his glasses at her, or that must have been what he was doing. It was still hard to tell when there weren’t any eyes in his head. There was something in the expression that Fitz couldn’t read, an almost fatherly look if he wasn’t mistaken. However, the undertone of it remained a mystery.

Perhaps not to Daisy, however, for she quickly drew her hand away, leaving the key wrapped up in Coulson’s bony fingers. 

“Thank you, Coulson,” she said and dropped her hands to her sides.

She turned around without another word and walked directly past Fitz, not giving him so much as a glance as she passed through the door. Fitz made to follow, but Cosmos bolted between his legs and lept to chase the satin slippers, knocking Fitz nearly off his already unsteady feet. 

Once he had regained his balance, Fitz managed to catch up to Daisy and followed her down another path, this one even more overgrown than the others. She didn’t seem to notice the state the pathway was in, anticipating every stray stone in the street like she had a map laying out each one behind her eyes. Fitz’s own movement down the road was not so deft. After nearly tumbling into a complete roll, Fitz stopped where he stood, wiped a bit more dust off of his jacket, and tried to catch his breath. 

“Daisy, please. Please may I speak to you? I can explain.”

Daisy came to a stop but remained silent with Cosmos halting at her heels. She turned her head slightly over her shoulder, her eyes skimming the ground before she raised them up to look at him through her lashes. Fitz steeled his courage and stood up a bit straighter. 

“I am so very sorry I did not inform you about Jemma.”

She blinked at him slowly.

“Jemma?”

“Yes, Jemma,” he breathed, savoring the sweetness of her name on his tongue. His heart slapped him with a pang of guilt. Now was no such time for that.

“Jemma,” Daisy repeated. “She’s your mistress?”

“My--Wha--No! No, Jemma is not my mistress. Jemma’s my--she’s my fiancé.”

Daisy stiffened, her eyes going as large as the full moon in autumn. “Your fiancé?”

“Yes,” he said, “My fiancé. I--I am meant to marry her tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Her eyes focused on something Fitz could not see. “Tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“You were nervous,” she whispered, her eyes still unfocused. She brought her fingers up to her lips.

“I’m sorry?”

“You were nervous. You said you go on walks, didn’t you? When we were up above. You said they clear your head. You took a walk tonight...because you were nervous about your wedding.”

Fitz blushed slightly, but given how pale and cold he was, it showed as warm as a sunrise on his bluish cheeks. 

“I was practicing the vows,” he said. “During the rehearsal I just could not seem to get them right. Everything coming out of the old sauce-box was pure rubbish. Made a damn fool of myself, really. Didn’t want it to happen on the actual day so I--”

“Went to the woods to run through them,” Daisy finished. A sad look passed across her face and Fitz’s heart no longer twisted, but crumbled instead as he watched the gloom fill her normally bright features. 

“You love her, don’t you Fitz?” 

He swallowed. He had lied to Daisy too much that night, so saying anything other than the truth would do nothing to spare her feelings. Had he not just been dragged back by the ankles to the underworld for telling nonsense lies? So, with complete and utter honesty he answered, “Yes. I love her with my whole heart.”

Daisy’s eyes fell to the floor and her shoulders sagged. “I could tell.” She looked up and gave him a wilting smile. “You wear your heart on your--hmm--rather dusty sleeves. And, back in that room, I could see she loved you too.”

Fitz wanted to say something else, but Daisy had turned away before any words could come. Silent once more, she disappeared down the mangled alleyway with Cosmos whimpering at her side, the sweet animal seeming to embody her feelings with the sad swishing of his tail.

Something in Fitz kept his feet planted on the cobblestone steps just before the alley. A voice in his head told him to follow her, comfort her in some way, but guilt rooted him down like weeds tangling over his shoes. So he simply stared at the place she had been with a wrinkled tie around his neck and a stinging cut on his brow, willing his feet to follow her down that path. 

* * *

Tears were bubbling at the rims of Daisy’s eyes and she bit her lip to contain a sob. How silly she had been. How dreadfully silly. It had been her naiveté and a fool's blind passion that had placed her underneath that tree all those years ago, only to have the excitement of a lover's meeting quickly turn as sour as spoiled milk. Damn Grant Ward. God damn him. 

She had wanted to reclaim that spot for her own, find true love there once again. It had been a daft idea and Coulson had warned her against it, but she just did not want Grant to have taken her heart along with her life and family jewels. Laying under that tree for so long, she had started to relent that Coulson’s words were true, that it was a senseless plan. 

But then there had been Fitz. 

Upon meeting him he had been sweet and kind and awkward, so different to the man who had left her dead by that knotted and rotted tree. In another moment of foolish hope, Daisy thought she could be on her way to mending her broken heart. Alas, it had shattered once more. It was not Fitz’s actions that left her feeling so forlorn. It was something she could not quite put words to yet. 

She walked down her street blindly, her flesh covered fingers tracing the cracked and broken bricks that made up the alley walls. She leaned into their coarseness and used it to ground her as she wound her way down the street that led her home. Her heart was no longer beating, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still feel the dreadful sorrow that sat heavy in her soul. The soul did not depart its owner, not even after death.

The place she called home was a shambled old repair shop hidden beyond the old alleyway. It was merely a decayed reflection of what was up above, but still the place was cozy with wood paneled walls and the memory of a fireplace. Besides, she had not decided upon the place for the natural light, as there was none so low underground. She had truly picked it for the piano that had somehow found its way there, much like her. The large grand at Benny’s was beautiful, but the simple old upright here was hers. 

With a little “humph,” Daisy dropped onto the worn wooden bench she had scrounged up from somewhere. Where? She had long forgotten. Now, it simply seemed as though it had always been and always would be, the piano and its mismatched bench growing up from the ground itself.

“How could I have been such a fool?” she whispered to the empty room, her hands falling heavily on the keys. The poor piano gave a shout of inharmonious chords, causing Daisy to startle in her seat. The moment the room grew quiet again, she sighed and placed gentler hands upon the beloved instrument. 

“I’m so sorry, piano,” she whispered, “Not the nicest hello.” She smiled softly. “Perhaps I should give you a nicer greeting. Or, yet, a whole conversation if you want. I sure could use someone to talk to.”

The fingers that were now only bone clattered against the ivory as she positioned them on the black and white keys, but Daisy had long ago grown used to that sensation. With well practiced form, she glided her hands along the piano, playing a dazzling, but softly melancholic melody. As she had always done, she conversed with the chords. Music had been her unwavering companion even before her death, a piece in the puzzle of her soul. The vibration of the strings seemed to always be in tune with her every emotion and she was never alone when they hummed along together. 

Music also often made her lose her sense of time. Whole days could have passed while she sat by her piano and it took being startled to pull her out of one of her trances. Such was the case just then. She was lost in the depths of a darker chord when she heard the clearing of a throat behind her. Her hands stilled and she glanced around at the door. Fitz was stooped down in the entrance, greeting a hesitant but happy Cosmos. 

“That is a beautiful composition,” he piped up, coming to awkwardly stand in the broken door frame. 

Daisy turned back to her song and started to play once more. She still was unsure of what to say to him, but, without really thinking, she shifted her spot on the bench to make room for Fitz to sit. There was a brief moment of thoughtful hesitation before she felt him land beside her. 

Without a word, he fell down into the music with her. His hands were on the deeper-pitched keys, creating a wonderful harmony to her melody. What was once a spirling swirl of high notes was suddenly grounded by a soulful, but not mournful, bass. Fitz was leading the music away from what Daisy felt was a much needed flurry, and she quickly added a spice of soprano into his richer mixture. It was like the twinkling of stars in a navy blue night. 

“Pardon my embellishment,” Daisy laughed when they had finished their piece, laying her hands on the edge of the instrument. “Felt it needed a flourish.”

“I liked the flourish,” Fitz responded with a cheeky grin. 

She looked at him closely, catching the different shades of blue in his eyes, and he met her with what turned into a warm smile, a smile that came to match the one she gifted him. They only looked at one another like that for the breath of a moment before Fitz turned his attention back to the black and white keys. He tucked in one corner of his mouth. 

“I did not intend to hurt you, Daisy.”

Her heart gave a pang and she joined him in looking at the keys.

“I know, Fitz. It was merely a misunderstanding by moonlight.”

He sighed a laugh. “Yes. I do believe that to be a decent description of the last few hours.” He plunked down a single sorrowful key before dropping his hands back into his lap. 

He gave a heavy sigh. “I can’t be married to you, Daisy. But I would like us to be friends. Only if you’d like to be friends of course! I would completely understand it if you never wished to--”

“I’d like to be your friend, Fitz,” Daisy broke in. 

He looked up at her carefully. “You would?”

“Yes,” she said with assurance, “I would.”

He let out a very long breath as tension melted away from his shoulders. It looked like he had become untwisted, unraveling like a loosened knot. 

“One request, however,” she said. 

She could see the knot begin to tie itself again as he looked at her with eyes that screamed with worry. “Yes?”

“Would you allow me to get to know you better?”

He visibly relaxed once more. “Yes. Of course. I--I could start if you don’t mind.”

“Well, go on then,” she teased.

He scratched his ear as he pondered for a question. “Er, do you like science?”

“Not really, never was much good at it,” Daisy replied with a shrug.

“Oh, what do you like to do?”

“I enjoy playing games, I dance, and I love--loved I guess--to ride.” A sad look fell upon her face and her head dipped low and away. “My father had a whole stable of horses back home. Had one of my own. Named him Hermes. He was a funny little horse, but always listened to what I said.”

She had not thought about Hermes in a long bit of time. He was home, really home. And home was hard to think about now that it was gone across a mile of dirt and an even farther stretch of ocean.

“What happened to him?” Fitz asked carefully.

“I don’t know. I rode him the day before we left for England. He was fidgety, like he knew I wouldn’t be coming back. Sensitive things animals are.”

Her eyes turned to Cosmos curled up at the side of the piano. His tail was tucked up under him as if he were protecting himself, but his head was cocked to the side as he listened. 

“That wasn’t how it happened, you know,” Daisy said. 

Upon looking at Fitz, she found a question in the wrinkle of his brow and realized her mind had made a path he couldn’t see. Waving a strand of leaf-strewn hair out of her face, she began to clarify the meaning of her statement.

“The story Benny told about me at the bar. He makes it sound romantic when he tells it. Dark, sure, but like a Greek tragedy or something of that kind. The reality of it was much more grim.” She fiddled with Fitz’s ring that was still on her finger, looking beyond it into a memory she had tried very hard to block out. 

“He leaves out how hungry I was,” she said quietly, a sense of pondering in her voice as she remembered the details. “I had claimed fatigue that night as a part of my plan and missed dinner. Snuck out down the window while everyone was in the dining room. Tore my veil on the way down.” She let out a bitter laugh. “I was worried Grant would notice, worried he would think I looked disheveled.”

She took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling, but a warm hand falling upon hers gave her the courage to keep talking. She had never told the whole story to anyone. Benny, who had gathered up all the bits and pieces, told the one they all liked to hear, anyway. 

“It was cold that night and I had no shall or coat. Just this silly wedding dress and all the money I could carry in my pillowcase. I was worried it would storm and the trees were swaying like they wanted to walk away. I was more scared that night than in Benny’s rendition of the story. Of course I was excited. I was struck dumb by cupid. But every little sound scared me half to death. Unfortunate thing is, it was who I was waiting for that I should have been most afraid of.”

A tear started to trace a path down Daisy’s cheek, but Fitz stopped it with a calloused thumb. 

“I’m so sorry, Daisy,” he whispered. 

“I’m the most sorry,” she sighed. “Isn’t that pathetic? Wanting to be loved so badly that you’re willing to take fools gold for the real thing?”

Fitz ardently shook his head. “It is not pathetic to wish to be loved. And how were you to know that this Grant bloke would be an absolute--”

“Hornswoggler?”

“I was going to say something a bit more rude.”

A laugh bubbled up in Daisy’s chest and she squeezed the hand that still laid atop hers. 

“I think all the rude words in the book could apply to Grant,” she said. 

Fitz grinned. “I could start going through them if you would like. Felt like I’ve been unable to properly curse for ages. This tie cuts them off, you see.”

The look on his face was more open than she had ever seen it. He was still a bit shy, she could see it in the corners of his mouth, but his eyes were much brighter than they had been that whole stressful evening. 

“Perhaps later,” she smiled, “My mother never let me say curse words, but my father allowed them if they were used properly. I have gathered quite the repertoire for an upper class American heiress. You could help me add some new ones.”

“It would be my pleasure. I’ll make sure I show you all the special Scottish ones before I return to the land of the living.” 

Daisy began to laugh before the sound slowly hollowed out and the room fell into silence. For a moment she had forgotten that he would have to return to where he had come from. He still had lungs that took in breath and a kind heart that still drummed away in his chest. She could keep Fitz as a friend, but she could not keep him for good. 

“Yes,” she lamented, “you’ll have to write me a list so I remember them.”

Fitz drew his hands back to his lap, his right thumb rubbing circles into the opposite palm. “Do you think Coulson will let me back upstairs?” 

“I’m sure he will once your time is renewed.”

“My time?” Fitz’s eyes snapped to hers and that happy light that had been there sparked back into the icy blue flames of panic.

Daisy straightened her back. “We already went up today. He can’t just give the key out whenever he wishes.”

“When will I be able to go back up? I’m supp--my wedding is tomorrow!”

That explained the panic. Fitz stared out into the void for a moment, his lugs rapidly taking in and letting out air, before he jumped up from the piano bench and began to pace. 

“Bloody h--I’ve already made such a mess of this whole business. Lighting my mother-in-law’s dress on fire--”

“What?”

“Is one thing. Not showing up to the wedding at all is another thing entirely. Oh for God’s sake.”

Daisy pushed back the piano bench and grabbed Fitz by the upper arms, fighting to get him to still. “Fitz, look at me.”

He stopped and reluctantly drew his gaze up from the floor and to her face. 

“Everything will be alright. From what I have seen and heard tonight I can say one thing for certain.” She smiled. “There is no way that Jemma is getting married without you.”

She rubbed his arms with as much reassurance as she could muster, pushing away her own ocean of feelings that threatened to rise up to her face like the tide.

Fitz’s eyes were still their shade of panicked blue, but his breathing was starting to slowly steady out. 

“Now,” Daisy said, her hands falling away from Fitz’s sleeves, “we have, I believe, twenty-two hours or so to kill. Can I offer you a tour of the underworld? I can show you mysteries never before seen by a living soul.”

“Is that not everything down here?” he asked. 

Daisy narrowed her eyes and hit him in the chest with the back of her hand. “No need to be so literal. Would you like a tour or not?”

She saw him hesitate for a moment in his panic before his eyes cleared slightly and he smiled. “I’d love one.”

He extended his elbow out to her and she looped her arm through his. With a wave of affection, she noticed that he did not so much as shiver when she placed her left hand upon his upper arm, the bony fingers no longer causing him to cower away from her. 

After all this time, she finally had a friend. And after so little time, he’d be leaving her. All she could hope for now was that whatever came next he would be happy and that his wedding would go off without another hitch. 

* * *

For a wedding that, in the words of Lady Simmons, needed to go exactly according to plan, everything seemed to be falling quickly apart. Standing in the frame of her open balcony doors, Jemma felt an icy shiver run down her spine. The sensation had nothing to do with the chill wind blowing her curtains about and everything to do with the fact that Fitz had just been dragged away by the corpse of a bride. 

Jemma felt rooted to the floor, unable to fully give credence to what had just happened. Fitz had appeared positively earnest when he had climbed up the side of the house and told her he had just gotten--what was it he had said?--a day pass to the land of the living. He had had such affection in his face, even in spite of the obvious anxiousness, as his hands and held onto hers. And he had seemed so happy to be marrying her. But then the bride had taken him back and, though confirming every word that had spilled from his very handsome mouth, had left Jemma to stand completely and utterly in shock. 

There was something odd about the whole scene. Well, there was plenty odd about what had just occurred in Jemma’s room, but there was one oddity in particular that was puzzling her. It did not seem as though Fitz had been frightened of the bride. In fact, he looked as if he had been about to try and explain the situation.

Jemma shook her head, clearing away the cobwebs lacing the corners of her thoughts. Whatever situation Fitz had been--quite literally--dragged into, he needed her help. He was her husband to be, her partner in life. The man she loved. She was certain of that now and had been about to tell him so, even before her heart had dropped to her feet at seeing him get ripped away from her. There truly was only one solution to her problem and she was going to solve it. She was going to get him back.

Somehow or other Jemma managed to untangle the invisible vines holding her feet to the floor and snatched her dressing robe around herself. She did not give a single care as to the time, she needed to start on her plan immediately. 

First thing on the list she was writing in her head was telling her parents what had happened. They would be in quite a state if Fitz simply just didn’t arrive for the wedding. If they knew that something had happened to him, perhaps they would be more forgiving, maybe even reschedule for after he was found. Her mother would still be in a state and no doubt start berating Fitz for being kidnapped saying something ridiculous like “if he had a higher standing perhaps he wouldn’t have gotten himself captured by a corpse.” Jemma screamed internally as she opened the door. Why did her ridiculous internal impersonation of her mother sound so frighteningly accurate?

Jemma took the stairs nearly two at a time, her slippers sliding on the edges of the steps in her hurry. She nearly tumbled down the last five steps, only just catching a hold of the railing before falling completely on her face. 

The large ghostly entrance hall was silent in its midnight state, the tall grey walls even colder in the evening light. Something about the room seemed to gobble up candlelight, spreading it out as thin as rationed butter on toast. Jemma, however, had grown used to the sensation and passed through the hall without slowing down. She didn’t even wait for the butler to finish his coughing fit and open the door for her before she went bursting into the drawing room.

She vaguely registered her mother scream and a chair scrape before she started talking.

“Father! Mother! Something has happened.”

“Lord have mercy, Jemma,” her father bellowed, “you scared us nearly to death.”

Her mother’s response, once she had caught her breath, differed ever so slightly from her father’s. “Jemma! What in God’s name do you think you are doing entering the parlor in your nightgown! And in such an aggressive fashion! Have you no decency? Have you gone mad? Lord Monroe, we are so very sorry.”

It was only then that Jemma noticed the handsome Lord Monroe sitting in the high back chair. She had forgotten that her parents had offered him lodging for the duration of the wedding events. Seeing him sitting there, she repressed a small shiver. He looked as though he were posed for a portrait, like Dorian Gray himself. 

“It is quite alright, Lady Simmons,” Lord Monroe said, his voice smooth but the t’s of his words sharp. Something about his voice felt like pinpricks on the inside of Jemma’s ears and it took everything in her not to outright scowl at him. 

“Miss Simmons seems to be more in a moment of need than in a moment of madness.”

Her father’s eyes turned back to her asking a silent question. Her mother’s eyes, however, screamed  _ Well? _

“It’s Fitz,” she said. 

Surprisingly, her father sighed. “Yes, poppet, we’ve already heard.”

“What? What do you mean you have already heard? You can’t have.”

“His mother came to the door only an hour ago,” Lady Simmons said. “Said he was missing. Never came back from his walk or something of that matter. She asked if we’d seen him. Of course we haven’t. Why would he come to us if he were running away on cold feet?”

Jemma’s stomach went hollow and her heart began to bang hard against her ribs. “Cold feet?” she mumbled, not caring a bit that she was mumbling in front of her mother. 

“Well of course it’s cold feet,” her mother replied, crossing her arms one atop the other. “I mean, look at the state of him this morning. I was surprised he didn’t dash out the door just during the rehearsal.”

A familiar fire started to lick at Jemma’s insides, working it’s way slowly up her throat so that her reply was almost croaky. “He hasn’t run away.”

“Jemma,” her father started.

“He has not run away!”

Surprise at her outburst was evident on her parent’s faces, her father’s bushy brows half way up his forehead and her mother’s normally thin mouth an “o.” It was only Lord Monroe who was unbothered enough by the outburst to reply. 

“Well, Miss Simmons, what do you believe has happened to him?”

The reply was out of her mouth before she could think better of it. 

"He was dragged off to the underworld by the corpse of a bride.”

The look on her mother’s face would have been funny had it not also made Jemma feel like she was about to get carted off to the asylum. 

“I think you need some rest,” her father said after much too long of a pause. “You’re in shock.”

“I am not in shock. I am worried about Fitz. And you all should be as well. I think it is of vital importance that we rescue the groom before the wedding, do you not agree?”

“Jemma darling, he has run away.”

“He hasn’t! I know he hasn’t! We need to find him so we can be married tomorrow!”

She knew she was making quite the scene, breaking all her mother’s strict rules of being seen and not heard. She was very much being seen--and in her nightgown--and the butler--if he had finished his coughing--had probably been able to hear the whole conversation clear as day even through the heavy wood door. And she was doing all of this in front of Lord Monroe at that. But, Fitz needed her help so propriety in that moment was of no importance to her. She was not going to sit in the corner like a very large doll for any longer, not when she knew a life away from that, a life of love and science, a life with Fitz, was just a day away. 

She looked to both her parents, her face screaming at them now that her words had stopped. To her utter horror and complete confusion, her mother smiled. 

“You will still be getting married tomorrow, dear,” she said, walking over to her and laying a cold hand on her cheek. The gesture appeared to be meant as soothing, but it just made panic spark up through every nerve in Jemma’s body.

“Mother?”

“When we heard the news that Mister Fitz had run off, Lord Monroe was gracious enough to offer us a solution. An even better deal than before, if you ask me.”

“I--I don’t know what you mean?”

“He had offered you his hand in marriage. And your father and I accepted.”

It was worse than fear, the feeling that stabbed Jemma then. Worse than panic or anger or grief. She couldn’t put a name to it, could barely even feel it properly. She couldn’t even cry. All Jemma could do was stare at her mother with her mouth agape and silently wish that she was dreaming up some horrible nightmare. 

But no, this nightmare was very real and Jemma was very much living in it. And in this waking nightmare she was living, things were not going according to plan at all.


	4. Jemma's Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for another chapter! I am going to try my very very hardest to have this fic all done and posted by Halloween, so fingers crossed on that! For now, I hope you enjoy chapter 4! Special thanks to Sabrina (@agentofship) for all of your help! Love ya girl! You're the best! And thank you so so much to everyone for supporting this fic! It means the absolute world!

Fitz was getting surprisingly used to walking underneath a ceiling that wasn’t the sky. The darkness above him was still unsettling--as was the knowledge that there was miles of earth separating him from everything he knew, separating him from Jemma--but its existence no longer made him feel as faint as it had when he had first blundered his way about the underworld. He still missed the surface. The stars, and fresh air, and the sunshine that was no doubt creeping its way up the horizon now. However, now, after his fair few hours spent in the underworld, when he looked up and saw nothing but a foggy black and purple ceiling he merely only grimaced rather than gawked. 

Awaiting the hour when he could return to the land of the living, Fitz decided to try and enjoy the unique experience that had been thrust upon him. It was either that or do what he had originally been doing which was panicking. Luckily he had found a friend in Daisy and so he felt much less alone now that he had someone to wander with.

As Daisy had suggested they should do to pass the time, the pair had almost made an entire lap of the village, the bride leading him along to all of her favorite haunts. They visited Madame Merveille’s shop of recovered silks--giving Fitz the time to properly apologize for knocking over her window display in one of his earlier panic induced runs--as well as Mister Van Dort’s run down book shop. Daisy had also pushed Fitz over and through the door of what he knew was a sweet shop on the surface, surprising him by purchasing an actually edible bite of chocolate.

“How does she get these again?” Fitz mumbled through his bite of delectable cocoa and cream. His manners of the last few hours were truly horrendous, but as he was bruised, bloodied, and his stomach was pretty much operating solely on the breakfast he had had several hours beforehand. He was also in the actual underworld so he gave niceties a pass. He would have to apologize to his mother for his impoliteness and incivility when he got to see her again. Which he hoped would be very soon. But as he could not control time, he decided to force himself to wait patiently for his _train ticket to the living_ as he was calling it in his head. 

“How does she get what? The chocolate?” Daisy asked, moving her hair off her shoulder, “She makes it. But the ingredients she gets from the trash.”

Fitz paled and promptly spat out the chocolate. Upon sitting back upright, he caught Daisy grinning like a Carroll’s Cheshire Cat and his face fell into an unamused frown.

“You were teasing just then.”

“Yes, I was teasing just then. I think it was well worth the show, though.” She smiled and handed him the extra bon bon she had purchased, crumpling it’s delicate paper wrapping in her hand before tucking it neatly into his jacket pocket with a little pat pat. “I’m not really sure where she gets the ingredients. Probably barters and trades like the rest of us. Seems worth it though. Not many people down here can really eat, so she doesn’t have many customers. But all those who still have their tongues spend a good amount of time trading in Mrs. Plums for something good to eat.”

Fitz momentarily paused his chewing at the tongue comment, but resumed as the sweet, rich flavor of the treat took over his taste buds. 

“People seem pretty happy here for being dead and all,” Fitz commented absentmindedly through his bite. The statement was out of his mouth before his--it should be said, quite exhausted--brain had fully filtered the comment. His eyes went very wide and he swallowed the chocolate so quickly it hurt as it went down his rather dry throat. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered when the last time he had had a drink of water was. He gulped one more time to clear away the last bit of chocolate coating the back of his mouth. “I-I didn’t mean that being dead was--I was just--What I was saying was--What I meant--”

Daisy put a reassuring hand atop of his and gave his fingers a squeeze. “I know what you meant, Fitz,” she said, meeting his gaze directly and soothing the flurry of nerves. She was very good at that.

Upon finally meeting her gaze, Fitz noticed that Daisy’s eyes were a soft brown color with little sparks of light in them. However, as he continued to look into them he realized they were tinted ever so slightly sad. Her whole face was a tragic hodge-podge of qualities. Effortlessly beautiful but marred by bits of decay, as cheery as her churchbell laugh but whose music was undercut by the tolling of a different kind of bell. 

With a slight upturn to the corner of her lips, Daisy’s eyes looked away from him and back out at the view before them. They had returned to the spot upon the hill where she had given him back Cosmos, enjoying the quietness of the underworld around them. The skeletal dog was now laying his jawbone across Fitz’s lap, but his head perked as Daisy sighed. 

“Most of the people here have accepted where they are,” she said. “Come to terms with it all and have decided to see the beauty in it. That’s what Coulson says, that there is beauty in our delicate decay.” Her eyelids closed for a moment before her lashes fluttered once more.

Fitz leaned forward and peered carefully at her face. Her chin was high and she looked straight past her nose off the cliffside. 

“And you?” he asked carefully.

A ghost of a smile played at the corner of her lips. “I’m trying to.”

“May I ask what’s stopping you?” Fitz wasn’t sure if it was proper to ask, but in spite of knowing Daisy for only a few hours she felt like a friend he could ask such things to.

“I am not really sure, Fitz. But I think I am getting close to finding out.”

She looked to him and another breeze that only seemed to affect her caught her veil. 

“What makes you say that?”

“Not sure. I just--” she huffed and found another spot in the sunless horizon, “Do you ever feel that life is pushing you forward to find something? And you don’t know what it is, but you feel you’ll know when you’ve finally got it in your hands?”

There was no hesitation in his response.

“Yes. I believe I know the feeling.” 

He found the same spot in the distance Daisy seemed to be looking at, but then his eyes moved upward, staring through the dark purplish fog to the ceiling of dirt he could not fully see. He thought of Jemma, of the feeling of her gentle touch upon his arms, the skin of her hand against his lips, her eyes that were as warm and as reliable as lamp light, clearing away the fog of doubt that had clouded him for so very long. He didn’t know exactly how he had known it, but the moment he had seen her it was as if a whole part of his world had suddenly been realized. Like an astronomer discovering a star. 

Fitz was broken out of his Jemma painted reverie by Cosmos jumping over Fitz’s knees onto the space of bench between them. He sat in Fitz’s lap, but he laid his chin upon Daisy’s arm. She smiled softly and scratched a bit of bone where the dog’s ear used to be.

“You know, I thought I’d find what I was looking for underneath that tree,” she said, her voice as light as the breeze, “I said it over and over again to Coulson. Told him that what I had been looking for my whole life would be there. I know, a bit dramatic but I think Coulson appreciated the theatrics. Humor aside, I really truly felt like it would be there…”

Fitz opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by a very loud bell toll. It seemed to reverberate about the entire expanse of space around them, echoing off buildings and shaking the ground below their feet. The whole underworld seemed to alter--warping and wiggling with his booming chime. 

Startled, Fitz yelped and hopped up off the bench with his arms gripping protectively around Cosmos’ ribcage. Daisy, however, seemed merely curious with her brows drawn together and her lips puckering over to the right corner of her mouth. She remained seated with her hands in her lap, but stood once the bell had finished its tolling.

“What in the bloody hell was that?” Fitz spluttered, straightening up his spine and trying to catch his runaway breath, “It couldn’t have been the clock, could it? It’s not the top of the hour yet!”

“Not the clock,” Daisy said. Her eyes were unfocused as, without further preamble, she started to glide down the hill, her feet treading delicately down the path as Fitz still stood frozen with a yapping Cosmos struggling in his arms.

“Where are you going? Daisy! Will you wait for a moment!”

Daisy continued to walk forward, but she did slow down enough to allow Fitz to catch up, her eyes focusing and her head turning over one shoulder to watch as Fitz jogged to keep up. “It was the bell toll,” she said, taking the wiggling Cosmos from Fitz and setting him upon the cobblestones. The dog barked happily, shaking out his bones with a rattle before padding away down the path beside the pair. 

“The wh--Daisy, please do remember I’m new to this,” he said. He huffed as he stepped over a stray branch in the road and dodged a loose bit of cobble. Daisy, meanwhile, continued on uninterrupted, her footwork as graceful as ever.

“The bell toll signals a new arrival,” she informed him, still focusing on leading them wherever they were going. Judging by the direction, Fitz guessed it was back to Benny’s bar.

At the words “new arrival,” a strange stab of nervousness prodded the walls of Fitz’s stomach and he swallowed hard. It had been a very long night and with everything that had happened in those hours Fitz couldn’t help but have Jemma’s visage suddenly pop into his mind’s eye. At the thought, he began to hope with everything inside of him that she was still safe in her bedroom, even whispering a very quiet, “be careful, Jemma,” to the blue and purple fog around him, praying for the first time in the past few hours that he wasn’t about to see her face.

* * *

The moment Jemma had finally come to grips with what her parents had just informed her of--if she really had at all--she was being shepherded back up the grand staircase, down the long dreary hallway, and into the sanctity of her room, their words still bouncing off her skull like hollow calls across a canyon. 

It was not a peaceful--and very far from ladylike--transition of locale. There was a good deal of pushing--probably more than necessary--and a whole lot of shoving--which was entirely unnecessary. Her parents had even had to ring the bell for Anna to be brought upstairs, requiring her assistance in Jemma’s removal from the drawing room. It was known by her parents that, at that moment, the lady’s maid was the only person in the house Jemma would actually listen to. And Lord and Lady Simmons--for the first time that night--had been right. Anna was the only one Jemma was willing to even look at, let alone take directions from. In fact, Jemma was much more inclined to run out the front door in her nightgown and slippers, never to look back than to go to bed like a “good little girl” and happily get married to the slimy, sharply hissing, snake Lord Monroe.

The whole pushing and shoving from the drawing room to her bedroom was a blur and it took Jemma several moments of silence before she could finally start to form whole thoughts again. Before then it had really just been “ _what the absolute bloody hell had just happened?”_ going around her mind like a train upon a looping track. 

Lord Monroe. They had actually handed her off to Lord Monroe! It was like she was a cow being sold at market. The injustice of it all made her want to scream! It took everything in her not to actually do so. But she had been taught to take all of her emotions, put them neatly in her music box, and crush them down for as long as she could without imploding. So, in spite of her desire to shriek at the top of her lungs, she swallowed all those emotions to the pit of her stomach and let her mind take the lead. Besides, she had already had one outburst that got her locked away in her room. If she went and had another one she might end up getting tied to her bedpost or something as well. Honestly, it was not out of her mother’s capabilities. No, Jemma needed a calm mind to think up a plan to find Fitz and a shouting match with her mother and father wasn’t going to help a trifle.

Jemma sat on the edge of her bed for a long stretch of time, looking past the dreary wallpaper and straight into her own thoughts as she was custom to do. Upon returning to her room, she had caught sight of the little stem of baby’s breath Fitz had given her before the rehearsal. She had snuck it into her dress as they had entered the study and, upon undressing for the night, had left it on her vanity. Rediscovering the token, Jemma smiled and let out a watery laugh before clutching tightly to the delicate little flower. And, while sitting upon the bed, she refused to put it down.

The hours wearing on, she somehow found herself laying atop her heavy duvet, staring at the deep royal blue bed curtains above her. Slowly but surely the pattern of the fabric started to blur and her eyes drifted closed as she fell into a fitful sleep. She awoke to the early morning sounds around her, still laying on top of her covers with her robe still wrapped about her and Fitz’s flower still in her hand. 

It was a shockingly beautiful morning. The sky outside her window was a freshly powered gray, tinted ever so slightly pink by the sunrise still creeping up the horizon. There was a bird chirping just outside the window and she managed to just catch the color of its wings as it flew off into the air. It was a lovely shade of blue, deep and rich like the color of Fitz’s eyes.

Immediately upon the thought of his handsome face, pale complexion, and sky like eyes, Jemma bounded off her bed and rang for Anna. There was a brief period of silence where Jemma wore a fissure into the floor, going over the plan she had slowly crafted throughout the night. She was broken out of her list making and double checking by a rapping at her door and a creaking of old hinges. She quickly put the flower back upon her vanity and faced the door.

Through the crack in the door peeked Anna, give the room a quick check before coming to walk completely over the threshold. The rims of her eyes were a pinkish red and her skin was slightly grey against the ashy blonde of her hair. It was the first time Jemma had ever noticed the lines carved into the woman’s face, life and time sculpting in new features. Anna had always seemed to appear the same age, even as Jemma herself grew older. But the night had worn everyone thin and upon seeing it’s full effect on Anna, Jemma felt it in herself. She brushed back her wayward hair and smiled at her lady’s maid.

“You rang for me ma'am?” Anna asked,

“Yes, I did. I shall need my riding dress...Anna, are you quite alright? You are paler than usual. Here, come sit.”

“It’s alright, ma'am. Was just a long night is all,” she said, shaking her head. 

“You are certain?”

“Yes, ma'am. And I am so sorry Lady Jemma but I missed your request. What was it you would like me to get?”

“My riding dress.”

Anna looked at her puzzled, a line of worry working from her forehead to the bridge of her nose. “Lady Jemma, your mother already picked the frock for your wedding d--”

“I would like to go for a ride,” Jemma said. 

“For--”

“It doesn’t matter.” Jemma’s eyes went very wide at her unexpectedly harsh tone and she rushed over to her lady’s maid, the tips of her fingers hovering just over her mouth. “Oh, Anna. I am sorry I interrupted you so rudely. I am in such a state of hurry and flurry. Please forgive me for my shortness. I just--I need to do something.”

Anna’s brows drew together. “Go after Mister Fitz, you mean?” she said.

In the beat of silence that followed, it was now the lady’s maid that seemed shocked at her own informal tone, but Jemma merely smiled and nodded with relief. Finally, she had her confidant. 

“Yes. I need to go find him. I think he’s--well I don’t know if it is trouble necessarily but I do believe that he needs my help.” 

Anna, clouds in her eyes, worried her lip, ringing her hands one over the other in a never ending loop. 

“You think me foolish for going after him?” Jemma asked, anxiety creeping into her own voice. However, there was that edge of defiance that bolstered her strength in spite of all the nervousness.

The lady’s maid shook her head, the clouds clearing from eyes to reveal dual moons on the sky of her face. “No, Lady Jemma. I’m just trying to figure a way that you’ll be able to get out the doors without causing a scene.”

“I was pondering over many of the same things, actually,” Jemma replied, gripping her chin in her palm with her fingers between her lips, “I was thinking that I shall simply skip breakfast and then walk outside, perhaps claiming I was in need of some fresh air. It can’t be too difficult can it? Mother thinks I’ve been up in my room, finding the error of my ways and finally coming to my senses. She’ll say something like “a good night’s rest has shown you the light.” Anna, what is that look? I thought I did rather a good impression of mother.”

The lady’s maid had in fact given a rather severe grimace at the recital of Jemma’s plan. She visibly gulped as she appeared to steel herself against some great worry before opening her mouth to speak. 

“Your mother forbade me from telling you this,” she said in a volume only just above a whisper.

Sensing her friend’s troubles, Jemma crossed the remaining floor between the two of them and gripped Anna’s hands tightly in her own. 

“Anna, you are my oldest and only friend in this house and my most trusted secret keeper. Whatever wrath my mother may wreck upon you I promise I shall protect you from it. If this information that my mother has barred you from telling me might keep me from helping the man I love I am sorry but I must beg you to tell me.”

“I don’t know if it will keep you from him,” Anna started anxiously, “it’s just a bit...well I don’t know, morbid.”

“Anna?”

“It’s just the hall is quite full of people currently. It’s the doctor you see.”

“The doctor?”

“Yes. The doctor.”

“Why is the doctor here.”

Anna swallowed a worried gulp. “He had to come in due to the butler.”

“The butler?”

“Yes, Lady Jemma. The butler.”

“What for? Is Mr. Edwards sick?”

“Yes. Well no. Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?”

“It seems he’s died.”

Jemma blinked several times before she processed what Anna had just told her. When she finally had, she fell onto the velvet cushion just beyond the end of her bed, her hands plopping heavily in her lap.

“Your mother isn’t pleased,” Anna said carefully.

Jemma’s head snapped very quickly over to Anna. “Isn’t pleased? Whatever do you mean she isn’t pleased?”

“She’s upset. She says it will put a damper on the rest of the day.”

There was that flash of anger again, licking the walls of Jemma’s throat like scalding water. She had to forcefully remind herself it was Anna who she was speaking to and not, in fact, Lady Simmons. 

“She surely doesn’t mean to go along with the wedding,” Jemma huffed, flying off the cushion to come to a stance.

Anna bit her lip. “I overheard her telling Lord Monroe not to worry. Said that the church was already paid for and that they would hate to delay. Said that they could simply just carry on.”

“Carry on? Carry--wait, she said paid for?”

“Yes, Lady Jemma.”

That nearly blew the lid off her music box. 

“Oh the nerve of them! The absolute nerve!” she nearly screamed, even making Anna jump an inch off the floor. She couldn’t even apologize for causing such a shock she was so angry. Fitz and his mother had paid for half of everything surrounding the ceremony and they were still using it to marry her off to Lord Monroe! The absolute nerve indeed.

Jemma stood very still in the middle of her room with her mouth shut very tight. The songbird the color of Fitz’s eyes had flown away, leaving her in the muted gray dungeon of her room with nothing but dull silence to press in around her from every side. Fire burned hot in her ribcage and, her mind made up, she turned her gaze back towards her lady’s maid.

“Anna,” she said, folding her hands out in front of her and straightening her spine, “I’d like you to help me into my riding dress. Oh, and what’s the weather like?”

“It’s surprisingly cold out, ma'am. The sky doesn’t quite show it, but there’s a definite chill.”

“Well then. I shall need my coat as well then.”

After giving her a curious look, Anna must have found something she needed to see for she gave Jemma a resolute nod and hurried out the door, leaving the younger woman alone to try and gather herself. 

Jemma could already foresee a very long day before her and she needed to keep her wits about her. If there was one thing her upbringing had taught her--other than an admittedly unhealthy way of coping with and handling emotions--it was how to keep one’s head in the face of something going wrong. Normally it just meant being able to steer conversation towards safer waters during dinner parties. Now, however, it appeared to mean being able to power through her fiancé being dragged to the underworld and fending off a new snake like suitor.

The lady’s maid was back in record time, holding Jemma’s deep fir green riding dress over her arm and grasping the veiled hat tightly in hand. Quickly, the two got to work.

“Thank you my dear Anna,” Jemma said as the woman began to tie the laces of her corset, “did the hall look any clearer when you passed it?”

“Yes, actually. Your mother has appeared to move everyone into the library. Or at least so one of the maids tells me. I passed Vicky on the way down the corridor.”

“She can move the masses my mother,” Jemma muttered bitterly, but the comment was cut off as her laces were pulled tight and her corset pushed in on her ribcage. With the pressure on her lungs and the restlessness beating alongside her heart, the procedure around her dressing closed off more than her breathing. Her throat became very tight and tears stung the corners of her eyes. 

“I’ll find him, won’t I, Anna?” Jemma whispered, hugging tightly to her bedpost.

Anna paused in her lacing and, to Jemma’s surprise, huffed a faint laugh. “I have long ago learned it is unwise to doubt you, Lady Jemma. If you’ve set your mind to it, you’ll find a way to make sure it happens. I personally have not a single doubt you will find Mister Fitz.”

Jemma wiped a quick tear from off her cheek. “Thank you, Anna. I am not sure what I would do without you.”

“Of course, ma’am. Now,” she said, finishing off the laces, “let’s get you in your dress.”

The moment her fir green dress was on, her coat over her shoulders, and her dark hair put back into it’s sleek braided style with her riding hat pinned perfectly in place, Jemma hugged Anna tightly. She almost wished not to let go, but knew she must. 

“Wish me luck,” she said, pulling away and brushing out her skirt.

Anna gave her a steeled off smile, her eyes as misty as the midnight ocean. “Good luck, Lady Jemma.”

With her new found courage, Jemma slipped out of her bedroom and down the long dreary hallway to the entrance hall. The large gloomy space was even more ghostly than normal, with the silence even more pronounced after the previous evening. Somehow, though, it was synchronously claustrophobic. The dull echoes that bounced about the high grey walls seemed to all be pointed directly at her the center of Jemma’s chest, closing in on her as tightly as the corset laced around her waist. 

Pushing through the constant state of unease that seemed to now paint the house, Jemma tiptoed down the steps as quickly and as quietly as she could, deftly avoiding the creaky plank four up from the bottom and landing as softly as a cat upon the ground. With the butler gone--God rest his soul--and her mother moving everyone into the library, Jemma had strangely very little trouble sneaking out the front door. 

As Anna had said, the grey morning was unexpectedly cold and the pink tinted sky above was slowly being drowned in coal black clouds as the day became more fully realized. Jemma shivered and pulled down the hem of her coat. It was no good standing there on the steps pondering over the weather and so, clearing her head with a shake, she started on her way to where they kept their horse, Barnaby. 

She had just passed through what they called the Rose Bush Path--the narrow walkway beside the house flanked by her mother’s prized rose bushes--when she heard footsteps coming from around the corner in front of her. Looking towards the noise, she gazed past the dying brambles--the autumn chill having claimed their flowers. But before she could so much as think of turning on her heel to go back the way she had come, Jemma found her path blocked by none other than Lord Monroe. He slithered towards her with proud strides, appearing like the proverbial snake in the grass. Rose bushes in this case it seems. 

“Miss Simmons,” he said, his accent drawing out for much longer than was needed. 

“Lord Monroe!” she chirped nervously, “what brings you out to the Rose Bush Path all alone? And so early this cold morning at that?”

“I could ask you the same thing?”

She smiled awkwardly, internally kicking herself as she replied with, “No, don’t.”

She closed her eyes for a brief moment before gathering herself once more. 

“I mean--I was just thinking that I would go for a bit of a ride. Clear away my wedding jitters,” she lied. 

Despite her efforts at a smooth recovery, she knew it was already too late. Her tone was off and if that alone had not done her in, the horribly fake smile she had given him surely had done. She was an absolutely dreadful liar. 

Lord Monroe took a step closer and Jemma countered the move by taking one back. The space on the path was tight and with so little room to move her dress got snarled in the remains of the roses, thorns digging into the fabric of her skirts. 

Trying desperately to escape from the clutch of her mother’s dying rose bushes, Jemma didn’t notice that Lord Monroe had taken another step until she caught a whiff of his cologne. It was shockingly strong, a strange mix of musk and something overly sweet. What did he do? Soak in it? It took a great deal of effort for her not to gag, especially when he flashed her a grossly handsome smile. 

He leaned in a bit closer, the smile pulling up one side of his face. “After the events of last night I wouldn’t blame you for wanting a bit of a distraction,” he said, “But I think your mother would frown upon an excursion at the moment. It seems that people are tending to run away from weddings. Perhaps it’s the new fashion.”

“A fashion you seem to like, given how quickly you have found a way to benefit from it.”

It was funny how fast apprehension transformed into anger and her response had slipped out of her mouth and off her tongue before she had fully thought it through. 

There was a sneer in the smile he gave her then, his already cold eyes nearly freezing over as he stared at her down his nose. “Now now, Jemma. I know you’re still upset about poor Mister Fitz. But he made his choices like a big boy. I guess he didn’t know what kind of jewel was right in front of him.” 

With another step, his height was suddenly overwhelming. Trapped between him and her mother’s roses, Jemma found no way to escape the finger he crooked underneath her chin. 

“Lucky for me,” he said, his accent as smooth as ironed shirts, “I know a diamond when I see one.”

A great weight of fear cracked atop Jemma’s skull and sent waves of chills down her spine. She could feel the blood rush from her face and the cold air around her permeated through her coat all the way down to her skin, gooseflesh forming across her arms. 

He cupped her cheek in his large palm. “Darling, you look very pale. You were right in saying it was a cold morning. Perhaps it truly is for the best that you come inside. Your mother has so graciously prepared for tea to be served. Come, I’ll lead you in.”

Jemma’s first thought as he forcefully linked their arms was to kick him, kick him in the loins and make a grand escape away to the woods on Barnaby. But it was no use now and the rush of adrenaline that had come with the thought quickly flooded out of her leaving her feeling sick. She wanted to fight him off, fight them all off. Him and her parents and the damn dying rose bush that had stuck to her skirts. She wanted to scream and cry. But more than anything she wanted to find Fitz. She wanted to find him safe and whole and take his warm hand in hers and run far far away like they were something out of an Austen novel. 

And yet, she couldn’t. 

Lord Monroe had a hold of her and there was no escaping it. Not now. Not now as he led her back into the house. Not now as her mother shouted about her being in the wrong frock--“What in heaven’s name are you doing in that riding dress!”--and her father shook hands with the man who had thwarted her escape. She’d need a new plan. Or perhaps, somehow, some odd sort of miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr @springmagpies!


	5. The New Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for another chapter!! Also, HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!! 🎃

As they walked down the steep slope of the cliff side path, Daisy could hear Fitz flail his feet to avoid a missing piece of the cobblestones behind her, his shoes scuffing as he let out a little huff into the air. Once he had righted himself, his footsteps quickened until he was right at her heel.

“I don’t quite understand how it all works,” he said, once again catching up to walk by her side. “I didn’t hear a bell when I got here.” 

Now that he had gotten more used to being in the underworld, Fitz’s curiosity had replaced his consternation. And although the arrival bell had startled him, his tone of voice indicated his fascination as well as--if she was not mistaken--a slight disappointment. At Fitz’s mention of his unorthodox arrival, Daisy smirked at the path before her, even going so far as playfully rolling her eyes. 

“How would you know if the bell had rung when you had gotten here? As I remember it, you were out cold on Benny’s floor. I remember because I was the one who had to drag you there.”

Fitz frowned in a rather petulant manner. “Let it be known it was well within reason that I fainted--”

“Didn’t say it wasn’t--”

“As I had just seen a body awaken from the dead and was taken by surprise. Now, going back to my point on the bell toll, I assumed it would have woken me up given that it just set off an entire earthquake around us.”

“Fine, your question is reasonable,” Daisy smiled, “but, no, I’m afraid you didn’t get a bell toll. A beating heart doesn’t exactly set off any sort of alarm. Probably why Coulson was so upset I didn’t come back to the shop right away. Made it harder to check you in.”

Fitz smoothed out his tie and coughed out an “oh.”

“Are you disappointed you didn’t get one?” Daisy teased.

“No,” he spluttered. “Well, fine, yes. Just a little. But, I will say I am rather glad for my beating heart and breathing lungs.”

“Yes,” she said, nudging his shoulder with her own of pure bone, “as you should be. It is an underappreciated thing.”

“What?”

“Life.”

She looked at him and couldn’t help but let the odd mixture of joy and sadness show in the brown of her eyes. The corner of his mouth drew upward, but his eyes remained fixed on her. Unable to continue to look at him, an odd sinking feeling filling her up as her kinship with her new friend grew, Daisy turned back to the path. 

They didn’t talk much after that, instead walking steadily in silence as she led them towards Benny’s. The only sounds to be heard on the cobblestone path was that of the underworld around them and the clattering of Cosmos’s bounding gait at their heels. 

The moment Daisy had heard the bell she had thought to go to Benny’s. The old grim covered bar tended to be the place that new arrivals went once they had checked in with Coulson. It seemed most people tended to be in need of a stiff drink after events such as their own deaths occurred. Being a landmark destination, it was the place the rest of the residents of the underworld flocked to to greet newcomers. So it was no surprise when, upon arriving at the decaying pub, Daisy and Fitz found the places packed with corpses. 

There were not as many people jammed into the space as had come to see Fitz--it wasn’t every day that a living person was brought down after all--but there was still a substantial amount. As said previously, Benny’s was always busy when the bell tolled. 

“Ah! Daisy and the breather are back!” the skeletal bartender hollered as she and Fitz walked through the door. His call caused a good deal of commotion, signaling everyone to herald in the pair’s arrival. Jack, the one-eyed skeleton with the pirate’s hat, even went so far as detaching his arm to wave hello above the many heads packed inside the pub. 

“Is the new arrival here yet?” Daisy asked.

The barkeep shook his skull. “Nope. Should be coming in any minute now, though. Most of us have been waiting in here since we heard the toll. Well, cept me and Old Jack. We were here long before the bell, swapping sailing stories.”

Daisy leaned her elbows on the bar top. “I thought you were a jester for the royal court,” she teased, knowing full well he used to sail aboard a pirate’s ship of his own.

“Were you really?” Fitz asked, flushing a remarkable shade of red when Benny burst into a great fit of laughter. 

“That was a joke wasn’t it?”

Daisy patted Fitz’s shoulder and tried not to laugh herself. 

“So,” Benny said, once he had regained some composure. “You two seemed to take your sweet time getting here.”

“We’re in no rush,” Daisy shrugged. “Fitz’s time to go back up doesn’t run out for another dozen hours.”

“Go back up? What do you mean go back up?”

Benny’s reply had been very loud and the whole bar quited at his booming storyteller's voice. 

Fitz rubbed the back of his neck nervously and straightened his hopeless tie. 

"He’s going back to the land of the living,” Daisy said. 

There was a wave of whispers over the room, bits and pieces of dialogue echoing from person to person. Meanwhile, the bartender opened his jaw like he was going to say something, his mandible swinging on its hinges. He, along with the whispering, was stopped, however, by a very grey looking man entering the bar. 

The man was a bit over average height and was wearing all black with a low cut waistcoat and a white tie. Dark mutton chops slid down the side of his face and he stared over a rather long nose. He stood very rigid in the doorway of the pub, his arms directly down his sides and his hands balled into fists. By the looks of it, he still had not quite accepted where he was. He looked around the room with very wide eyes and his face seemed to get more green tinted by the minute. As his gaze traveled over to where Daisy and Fitz stood at the bar in the center of the room, the bride tried to give him a welcoming smile. It must not have shown upon her face as she had intended, for the man’s very dark eyebrows launched up his forehead at the sight of them. Or more specifically, Daisy realized, at the sight of Fitz.

“Good God,” the man spluttered. His body loosened and he blinked several times at the living man in front of him. “The poor girl was speaking the truth!”

Looking over to Fitz, Daisy saw recognition play across his features. His blue eyes were bright and his cheeks flushed pink, but unlike how they had the rest of the night it seemed there was some excitement in the root of the color. 

"You're the Simmonses’ butler!” he cried, rushing over to the man.

The butler once again went rigid as Fitz came barreling close, probably closer than he had meant to.

“I am indeed, sir.”

"What are you doing down here? Is everything okay? Is Jemma alright?”

“Well, sir. I died.”

Fitz swallowed. “Oh, right. Of course. So sorry.” He wiped a hand down his face, shaking out his wayward curls. “Bloody hell, my manners are appalling tonight.” 

The butler coughed. “Indeed, sir.”

Seeing her friend floundering, Daisy quickly walked up to Fitz’s elbow and gave the former butler a warm look. “I believe what Fitz was meaning to ask is what exactly happened to you?”

“Yeah,” came Benny from the bar, “we normally do a bit of story time down here when a new recruit arrives. Sit pride of place and tell us your tale. Mister Fitz, will you help him to the table?”

Once the man had been sat down at the center table--he was grateful for the chair as his knees had gone a bit wobbly at the sight of all the skeletons and walking corpses--they handed him a flaxen colored drink with a spider crawling up the side. Daisy quickly swatted away the arachnid before the already shaken man could grab ahold of the pint.

“So, what’s your name?” she asked, sliding him over the now spider free drink.

“Edwards. James Edwards.”

“How kingly,” Benny whispered. Miss Plum, who was sitting on one of the barstools, swatted him with Jack’s removed hand. 

Daisy, however, ignored the comment and continued to talk to Mr. Edwards. 

“And how did you get here, James?”

“Mr. Edwards if you will.”

“Oops, sorry. Mr. Edwards.”

“Well, I was feeling a bit under the weather after dinner,” he recalled, “Throat all tight and I couldn’t seem to clear it. Couldn’t be certain what it was all about but my face went all puffy and my throat constricted like a snake had wrapped around it. And then I woke up here in that rather disorganized and dusty shop.”

Fitz took the seat across from the butler and frowned. “You didn’t call for help?”

“No, Lord and Lady Simmons already had their hands full with Lady Jemma.”

“Their hands full?” Fitz repeated, “What do you mean? Is Jemma alright.”

Mr. Edwards scoffed, taking Fitz aback. “Depends on what you mean by alright. She’s in no physical danger but everyone was convinced she was having a bit of a…”

“A what?”

The butler lowered his voice and said in a vaguely judgemental whisper, “An episode.”

Fitz’s face contorted at Mr. Edwards' tone of voice in a look Daisy had never seen it form before. 

“And what do you define as an episode, Mr. Edwards?” the Scotsman asked.

“Well, she ran into the drawing room without even so much as waiting for me to open the door for her. I was trying to clear my throat, but there was no need for impatience. And then of course there was the fact that she was in her nightgown and her slippers. All while Lord Monroe was there mind you.”

“Lord Monroe was there?” Fitz blurted. 

Daisy did not know who this Lord Monroe was but, given Fitz looked like he had just smelled something bad under his nose, he didn’t seem to be a very good fellow. 

The former butler took a sip of his drink and coughed violently before answering Fitz. 

“Yes, sir. Lord and Lady Simmons invited Lord Monroe to stay for the wedding. Took their time telling the staff if I may be impertinent and say so. It seems I along with the rest of the staff were not alone in my frustrations at his staying in the house. Lady Jemma was in quite a state about it. Though, it must be said she was losing her head over a lot of things. Shouting so loud I think she must have forgotten her upbringing upstairs.”

“Careful of your tone, Mr. Edwards,” Fitz warned, standing up from his chair. “This is Lady Jemma you are speaking of. Whatever reasons she had for shouting I am sure they were warranted.”

Mr. Edwards barked a laugh, startling Cosmos who barked back and growled. “I am sure you would think her outburst warranted given it was you she was bellowing about.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Said you had been dragged off to the underworld by the corpse of a bride.”

Daisy’s stomach twisted and she and Fitz exchanged nervous looks, the corner of Fitz’s mouth raising ever so slightly.

“I had admittedly sided with her mother when she said Lady Jemma might have gone mad,” Edwards continued, “Was convinced along with the rest of them that you had flown away on cold feet. But Lady Jemma had sworn up and down you wouldn’t just go and run off on her. Obviously we all were wrong and she had been as clear headed then as she had ever been when she said all those things.”

“Yes,” Fitz said, a lovely peony pink color blooming high on his cheekbones. “She obviously was.”

The newcomer gave another cough and shook his head. “Quite a shame then if you really haven’t run away.”

Fitz’s brows drew down and together as he processed what the former butler had said, but it was Daisy who responded. 

“Why is it a shame? This means that Fitz still wants to marry her. I know for certain that that’s better than him having run off.” 

“Yes,” Fitz added, “in fact I’m going back up to the land of the living the moment I’m able.”

Mr. Edwards sniffed. “Well, you best be going back up there soon if you actually want to marry her.”

“If Jemma has told her parents I haven’t run off,” Fitz said, but his voice petered out as realization dawned on him. “They don’t believe her, do they?” 

“No. And Lord and Lady Simmons are not very patient people. Made Lord Monroe’s proposal very convenient for them.”

At that moment, Daisy wasn’t sure if Fitz was going to faint or start shouting. His complexion was a splotchy canvas of pale and pink hues until all color drained away to leave him a chalky white. 

“They’re marrying her off to Lord Monroe?” he mumbled, falling into the chair on the opposite side of the table.

“Yes, Mister Fitz. If Lady Simmons has her way, the pair will be married before the sun sets.”

Daisy watched nervously as Fitz leaned his elbows on the dust-encrusted table and threaded his fingers through the curls atop his head. After the events of the past few hours, the product that had most likely kept his hair somewhat tamed into the fashionable style was gone and his hair ran rampant. His disheveled appearance had been almost cute throughout the night, but now, as his eyes seemed to turn a stormy shade of blue, it only reflected his tired and anxious state of mind. 

"I won’t be allowed back up until eleven,” he said. 

The former butler cleared away a cough with a sip of his drink. “Well then I am afraid you are out of luck Mister Fitz.”

The bar was very quiet, the patrons unsure of what this news all really meant. Daisy, however, could feel Fitz’s pain as if it were own. For she had felt a similar sensation weighing in her own soul now for years. 

The Scotsman rested his chin in his hands, cupping his fingers over his nose as he let out a sigh. If she wasn’t mistaken, it appeared he was trying to stem back tears by damming up the ducts with his fingertips. After heaving a great sigh, the whole bar collectively jumped as Fitz slammed his fist upon the table and got to his feet.

“Pardon me, Daisy,” he said, his voice dripping with tears he was trying so desperately to swallow down, “I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

“Fitz--”

“It’s quite alright. I think I’ll just--I shall--humph--perhaps it’s best if I walk on my own.” 

He left the bar without another word, but not quite as alone as he had intended, for Cosmos padded along beside him, giving his owner a whimper in solidarity.

As he had wished to be without company, Daisy gave him half of the hour to wander unattended. But it seemed to her that Fitz was not the type to wish for solitude. To her, he seemed much more the type to merely give off that air but deep down wish he had someone to talk to. Or maybe just someone who would listen. She felt him a kindred spirit in that aspect and knew what she would hope a friend would do. And so she made her way out into the black and purple fog to find him.

When the clock chimed the morning hour of five, Daisy started down the cobblestones in search of Fitz. In his slow strides, he appeared much less likely to knock something over and his footing in the underworld was now much more sure. However, she nonetheless felt she was on the right track in finding him as she walked towards the high cliffside. 

She found him sitting upon the old wrought iron bench, his head ducked low and Cosmos on his lap. He was twirling something between his fingers but Daisy couldn’t tell quite what from where she stood. 

"Thought I might find you here,” Daisy said, her voice a delicate balance of friendly and understanding.

Fitz startled at her call and Cosmos leapt from off his lap to hop about at Daisy’s feet. The moment Fitz realized it was her who had arrived, his shoulders quickly sagged and he relaxed, giving her a melancholic smile. 

“And I figured you would follow me here.”

“I can go if you like.”

“No,” he replied, giving a slow shake of his head, “I’d much rather you stayed if that’s alright.”

“Of course, Fitz.”

Floating over to him on nimble feet, Daisy fluttered down to sit upon the empty space of bench beside him. The skeleton dog, no longer on his owner’s lap, spun out a bed in the dirt and laid down in front of them. Fitz, meanwhile, gazed out before him at the morbid reflection beyond the cliffside, a thing they seemed to be doing so often as of late. She, however, looked only at him. 

His cheeks were hollow and his eyes were held by grey and sunken crescents that showed his lack of sleep. He had a leaf in his hair and a fair amount of dirt on his dark jacket and pants. His poor blue tie, which hung loose around his neck, was so far gone from its wringing Daisy was unsure it would ever recover. But what really struck her was the object he returned to twirling between his fingers.

“Baby’s breath?” Daisy said, nodding at the small flower he held between his forefinger and thumb.

Fitz’s chin shot down to his chest as he glanced at the flower before rocketing back up so that their eyes met. 

“Oh--er--yes. I found it on my walk.”

“Must have been from Fleurs,” Daisy commented. “She collects dried flowers. No need to panic, Fitz,” she said as his eyes widened, “you haven’t stolen anything. Fleur has been here for a long time and has more flowers than she knows what to do with. If you got it from outside the shop it was from the ones she gives away.”

Relief fell across his face, but the sadness quickly claimed his features once more. It was like rain clouds taking over the wind. 

“I gave Jemma these,” he said quietly, looking back down at the flower. “Was in a vase on their piano. I was a complete clot and couldn’t seem to stop running into everything in that damn house. Knocked the thing right over after tumbling over the piano bench. Thought she was going to think me a fool.” He smiled down at the fragrant dots of petals. “But she just smiled at me and put her hand on top of mine.” 

His hands, along with the flower, dropped to his lap and he swallowed hard, tears threatening to fall down his cheeks. He sniffed and looked back out at the hazy purple horizon. Suddenly a curtain fell over his tears and he shook his head before, his gaze flying back to meet hers. 

“Goodness, what am I doing? I am so sorry Daisy. This is unfair of me to--”

“Fitz,” she stopped him, gripping his knee. “We have agreed that we are friends, have we not?

“Yes.”

"Then this is what friends do. They listen. Besides, it’s my fault you’re down here anyway. If I just hadn’t have been so foolish--”

“No!” He spluttered, now the one to cut her off, “this isn’t your fault either!” He puffed a visible breath. It truly was cold down in the underworld. “It’s no one's fault. Just a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications.”

“Yes,” Daisy agreed, her own voice dropping in volume to match his, “exactly that.”

Fitz turned back to his flower and let out another long sigh. “Perhaps it’s for the better she isn’t marrying me. Protect her from the public humiliation of stooping so low in status. Lord and Lady Simmons are probably much more pleased with Lord Monroe as their son-in-law to be.”

Daisy frowned. “Well, by the look you had on your face at the bar I highly doubt you truly believe that. Think you might be attempting to delude yourself. And, if I may add, the story that that Mr. Edwards told made it seem that Jemma was more than just disappointed by the new arrangement. Looks to me like this Lord Monroe is rather--”

“Slimy. Greedy. Untrustworthy.”

“Sure, Sir Thesaurus. Any of those.”

That got a genuine smile out of him, but it quickly melted back into a withdrawn and weary expression. Rain clouds and wind. 

“But even if it was me who she was still marrying, who’s to say I wouldn’t be the disappointment her parents think I am.”

Hearing the words that had come out of his mouth, Daisy took a hold of Fitz’s hand and squeezed. 

“You know,” she said, now taking her turn to stare off the cliffside, “when I was younger, my dad took me out West to California. He had friends out there making money in the railroad and in all the new developments. For some reason, don't really remember what, he brought me along for his trip. He let me follow him like his “vocal shadow” he called it. 

“We checked out all of the new rail lines being set and the shops that were being opened up all along them. But the best day was when one of his friends took us out to pan for gold. All the other men brought their sons and my dad brought me. Called it the best day ever.” She smiled at the memory and had to twitch her nose to keep the tears at bay as she recalled her father’s voice. Somewhere outside the story she felt Fitz squeeze her hand. 

“Well, my dad’s friend showed us all how to find gold in the river. Said the way you pan for gold is you’ve got to sift through all the mud and silt dragged up to find what you’re looking for. As I was doing it I kept thinking that there was no way there was anything in all the sludge I was going through. But then I found these rough nuggets of gold, covered in the dirt it collected down it’s time in the river. And I remember thinking, how’s this worth more than the shiny pennies in my dad's pocket? But you know what,” she said, turning her eyes towards Fitz, “Just because the gold has been through more doesn’t mean it’s worth less.”

She smiled at him and let go of his hand, choosing instead to wipe the tear off his cheek just as he had done for her at her piano. “You’ve got a heart made of pure gold, Fitz. And there is nothing disappointing in that. I promise you.”

“Thank you, Daisy,” he said and she could see in hi eyes just how much he meant it. He sniffed, quickly wiping the back of his hand across the tip of his nose. 

“Of course, Fitz. Now,” she clapped her hands with an odd rattling sound, “we just need to work on the way we’re going to get you back to the surface.”

Fitz’s head moved side to side as his posture once again collapsed. “There’s no way to make up our time. By the time we manage to get back to the living it’ll be too late.”

"Maybe we could beg Coulson to bend the rules for us,” Daisy suggested, flicking her veil over her shoulder. “I think that plan could possibly work.”

“Even with the high chance he says no and the time spent begging possibly being a waste?”

“Less confident the plan will sail when you poke holes in it like that. Still, maybe with both our voices we might be just vexing enough to convince him. He’ll do it just to return some peace and quiet to the shop.”

Fitz chuckled and Cosmos barked at the return of the merry sound. “In that case, why not just gather a whole company from Benny’s and storm the place.”

While Fitz continued to chuckle, a thought occurred to Daisy. A passage she had read in one of Coulson’s books back when she had helped him around the shop.

“Fitz…” she muttered, grabbing onto his sleeve. He stopped laughing and his brows drew together with curiosity.

“What? What is it?”

“What you just said. Storming the place.”

“Wait,” he paled, “Daisy, I was just making a stupid joke. I didn’t actually mean for us to storm Coulson’s shop. I don’t want to cause him any real disturbance.”

“No, no I know. I don’t mean for us to storm Coulson’s. I don’t think we could even fit everyone in that room--not the point. What I’m saying is we storm the surface.”

Fitz blinked blankly several times in a row. “Daisy…”

“Visitation day,” she said.

“What?”

She grinned a wide grin, happiness enveloping her like she was caught within a bubble of the pure emotion. “Visitation day. A chance for the dead to see the living. It’s rarely given out, but as far as I’m aware there hasn’t been one for centuries. And I think now seems like a good of a time as any to celebrate it once more. It grants everyone a pass to the surface regardless of the last time they had visited. Meaning--”

“We could go up before sunset.”

“Exactly! So if Coulson declares it Visitation Day--”

“We can stop the wedding!”

Fitz jumped up from the bench and cheered, probably breaking about a thousand rules of proprietary. Daisy, always one for rule breaking, joined him and he enveloped her in a joyous hug, excitement and relief washing over the pair of them.

They had a possible ticket up, now they just had to find a way to call the train.


	6. The Wedding Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as you can see, there is now 7 chapters instead of 6. So, basically what happened is the original final chapter was about 20 pages in my doc and I figured I should probably split that up 😂. Anyway, this fic is completed so I will probably upload the final chapter later tonight! Yay!!! Again, thank you all so much for the lovely support on this fic!!

Where the pair had initially taken their underground morning walk at a leisurely stroll, the moment they had realized a possible plan to reach the surface, Fitz and Daisy flew down the roads like a steam engine chugging along a track. Perhaps it was due to the hope hued adrenaline, or maybe he was just finally gaining his bearings, but Fitz somehow managed to make it to Coulson's shop without tripping once. For not a single stray stone or branch could keep him from getting back to Jemma.

The old door on rusty hinges didn’t even have enough time to creak as they burst through it, the poor little golden bell atop it yelping out a jingle as it was knocked violently out of the way in their rush. 

As the two entered the high ceilinged labyrinth of bookshelves and other eclectic mess, Daisy called their greeting into the clutter.

“Coulson, it’s--”

“I know who it is,” the skeleton said, looking down from one of the ladders along the wall. “If your voice didn’t give it away, the dramatic entrance did. What did you do? Quake your way in here? I just fixed that bell and if you’ve managed to break it I’m not going to be my best self.”

Daisy folded her arms, her dark shadow rimmed eyes rolling around the circumference of their sockets. “You have ‘just fixed that bell’ for years now.”

Coulson peered down his glasses at the pair of them and Fitz gave a little shrug, thinking it best not to even jokingly upset the being who literally held the key to his future. 

“Well,” Fitz said, scratching behind his ear, “you could argue that time is relative and given how long Coulson’s been down here he really could have _just_ fixed that bell.”

The director gestured with a book, a few leaflets of paper slipping to stick out of it like quills on a porcupine. “Thank you. See, Fitz here understands. And my point about the bell still holds. You can’t just go around breaking down doors for dramatic emphasis.”

As Coulson made his way down the ladder, his bony hands clacking against the wooden rungs, Daisy shot Fitz a look. Whether it was one of mutual amusement and comradery or one given with the exact opposite intent, Fitz was not completely sure. But, either way, it was broken by the clearing of Coulson’s throat. Hours in the underworld and Fitz still wasn’t over wondering how in the name of all things scientific a skeleton would have the need to cough or dislodge phlegm from a throat that didn’t appear to still be intact. He quickly pushed the thought aside, however, as the director of the dead came to lean against the front of the cluttered desk.

“So,” he said, once again looking down his nasal bone, “what brings the two of you back in here again so soon.”

“We need to go to the surface,” Fitz burst. Standing and bantering had made him antsy as it was not as though they had ample hours to kill. Besides, manners and polite patience had been tossed out the window long ago. 

Coulson lifted his chin slightly and folded his arms, readjusting his specs closer to his empty sockets. “Your time isn’t up yet. By my estimate you have at least another ten hours or so until the clock striked eleven.”

“Yes, we know,” Daisy said. She put a gentle hand on Fitz’s shoulder, pulling him back slightly for he had walked forward towards the desk in his urgency. 

“Right, sorry,” he mumbled, “Yes, it is probably best you talk.”

“Probably,” he caught Coulson mutter. 

Daisy stepped forward before Fitz could forget his initiative of avoiding confrontation and let out a retort. 

“Coulson, I think I have figured out a way to allow us to return to the land of the living without having to wait for our time barrier to tick over.”

Coulson’s brow bone tilted forward. “And what way is that?”

“Visitation Day.”

The skeleton stood up straight and unfolded his arms. He even went so far as to, with a slight shake of his head and a slowly moving hand, completely take off his spectacles from the ridge of his nasal bone. 

“Where did you hear about that?”

“I read it in one of your books,” Daisy said, and Fitz could hear the slightly sheepish bit of pride running under her words like the buzzing of an electric current. “It was in the volume on the relationship between the living and the dead. Read it back when you had me organize them by subject.”

“This place was organized once?” Fitz muttered ever so slightly too loud to himself, earning him a bony elbow to the ribs from Daisy. Right, he had just been the one to think that testing Coulson’s sense of humor was not the appropriate action at the given moment. 

The room sat still in a weighty silence. Well, apart from Cosmos who could be heard chewing on an old broken quill in his window seat. After what felt like much too long to Fitz, who was still trying very hard to keep from shaking someone at the slow process that was this decision making, Coulson finally spoke, moving to a comfortable seat in the large chair behind his desk.

He placed his glasses back upon his lack of a nose. “Visitation Day is risky, Daisy. The living tend to try and avoid thinking too much about the dead as they are. They much prefer us as memories. Appearing on the surface may cause a fair bit of chaos.”

“Or it could go perfectly fine! It may not be how they would want it, but they would still get to speak to their loved ones. Or even just stick to the woods and look up at a true moon filled sky. And, at its core, is a chance not what a risk is?” 

Daisy floated over to the large ornate desk, shoving aside a large leather bound tome to reach her hands across the surface. Fitz watched as the brown eyes sparked with a life he hadn’t seen, urgency making them bright in the warm candlelight of Coulson’s shop. 

“Please, Coulson. Visitation means you finally get the chance to go up too instead of being stuck in here to do your duty or whatever oath keeps you here. Don’t you want to see the stars again?”

The skeleton let out a huff that--under the right conditions--could perhaps have been a laugh. “You’re trying to manipulate me into granting you access upstairs aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Daisy said, her mouth working its way into a smile, “is it working?”

Coulson took a very large breath, filling up lungs he did not have and once again confusing Fitz with how underworld anatomy worked. 

He tapped his finger atop the book Daisy had pushed away, but his hand stilled on the cover as he spoke. “Can I ask why you would like to go back up there so soon after your last visit?” 

The question was phrased carefully, Coulson’s voice slow and his lack of eyes fixed on Daisy and Daisy alone. 

The bride pulled her hands towards herself, dragging them across the old polished wood grain so that they were folded before her. Carefully she took the ring Fitz had mistakenly put upon her finger and began to twist it nervously around the bone. His eyes were so busy watching the spinning band of gold he nearly missed what she was saying. 

“Do you remember the feeling I told you about when I begged you to let me stay on the surface? Right before the first time I went up there? How I felt I was needed beneath that tree. I think I am on my way to understanding that feeling, Coulson. I know what it is and I know that I’ll find it up there. Besides, there has been a misunderstanding and--and Fitz needs to go back.”

With the final statement, the skeletal gaze turned slowly over to him. “And who do you need to go back for Fitz? I’m guessing by your urgency it is a who.”

With the image in his mind of the woman he had left alone in that cold bedroom and the picture of a sun slowly moving to sink down below the horizon line, Fitz took a step closer to the director. “I need to go back for Jemma. She’s my fiancé, sir. Now that I’m gone, she’s getting married off by her parents to someone I have a feeling in my gut is going to bring her harm. And I--I have to get back to her. I have to. To make sure she’s okay and to--and to start our new…” 

The word he was about to say dissolved on his tongue as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Daisy duck her head. He could see on her face she was not upset that he was going back for Jemma, she had assured him that that was not the case. It was something else. Something written in the way she wrinkled her nose. And, in that moment, he thought he just might have figured out what Daisy was looking for. Inside his ribcage, his heart wrenched into a painful twist, wringing him out like a rag as he thought of a horse awaiting a girl who would never come back and a father missing the daughter he had taken along to pan for gold. 

“I’ve got to make things right,” he said, his eyes lingering on Daisy before he slowly pulled them away. “For Daisy. And for Jemma. And for me as well I guess. I’ve got my mum, sir, and a home that needs help looking after with a piano I’d like to teach my kids to play. I--I’ve got another chance, Coulson. And I need to take it.”

Again, there was a long pregnant pause as the director of the dead took his time sitting back in his chair. His expression was unreadable, the bones smooth of any distinct emotion or decipherable thought. Fitz was not sure whether this thinning out of the moment frustrated him or calmed him down or just simply made him anxious. But even with all the worries roiling in his stomach, Fitz could not help but hope. 

“Coulson,” Daisy finally said, cracking open the quiet of the room like an egg and letting all the pent up tension leak out. 

The chair creaked as the skeleton pushed it back, coming to stand so that he was leaning over the desk and held up by the bones making up his palm. “I cannot just grant Visitation without precaution, Daisy. You know this.” 

“Yes, I know,” she said. She gave him a half smile. “I read the book.”

“Then you know that there is a sacrifice.”

Fitz’s eyes widened and his head snapped to Daisy so quickly he most likely pulled a muscle in his neck--though he most likely had already strained every muscle in his body given how many times he had fallen over in the past twenty-four hours. 

“What do you mean there is a sacrifice?” he spluttered. “What exactly does this sacrifice business entail? Like a life or death sacrifice? Like someone can’t come back? Or someone from the surface has to get pulled down here?”

Coulson sat back, his head tilted slightly to one side as he replied. 

“Wow. No. Those are all a bit harsh. I mean, the real thing is still a sacrifice, but good thing it wasn’t written by you. See, if I grant everyone a Visitation Day, there will be no more visits of any kind for the next hundred years for anyone who has visited on the day. Meaning no corporeal or incorporeal visits, no horse and buggy possessions, no burying yourself in the woods--”

Daisy tucked her leaf littered hair behind her ear. “Technically I was left there and just returned to the spot.”

“No floating candlesticks or magic mirrors. You’ll need everyone’s approval on this. You know that some will not want to give up their hauntings.”

“Wait,” Fitz broke in, “you lot all come up to--to haunt us? Like ghosts? That’s not possible, right?”

Both Daisy and Coulson turned their faces slowly in Fitz’s direction. 

“Fitz,” Daisy smiled, the chime of her church bell laugh escaping her lips, “after everything you have seen, you’re questioning the existence of ghosts?”

“No! I--I think it is just where I draw the line! I still don’t understand about eighty percent of what is going on--and believe me that’s distressing enough--and now I have been told that the things my mum swore up and down did not exist have in fact been there the whole bloody time! Which means there was a ghost in my nan's house and I was not just staying up too late reading. And...none of this matters. So sorry.” 

Quickly straightening his poor dirt powdered vest and brushing his hands nervously across his pants, he waved for Daisy and Coulson to continue their conversation. Daisy, however, chose to giggle before proceeding, causing Cosmos to let out a delighted bark that Fitz was almost sure was the pups own version of a hearty laugh. 

“Visitation Day is special,” Daisy said, turning back to Coulson once Cosmos had quieted, “it’s bringing everyone together to reunite with their loved ones. There’s no sneaking or spying or haunting like we normally have to do. If you offer your support for the idea people are bound to agree with it. Don’t you agree with it?”

“Of course I agree with it, Daisy. I’ve been held up in this shop for centuries,” Couslon said, walking towards them. 

“So… you are saying yes to the plan?” Fitz exclaimed. 

“Yes, Fitz. I am saying yes to the plan.”

Delighted, Fitz could not help the toothy smile that pulled up his cheeks. He grabbed a hold of Daisy’s arm and squeezed, catching the gleeful grin she returned. There was going to be another round of debate at Benny’s over their proposal, but, with one very large hurdle jumped, Fitz felt hope and confidence bubble up in his chest like freshly poured champagne. He was one step closer to Jemma. One step closer to home. 

\----

It took much longer than Fitz would have liked for Coulson to ready the place for their exit. It was something that he had not had to do since the early 1400s, having been duty bound to the office overflowing with parchment and quills. Having not had the need to close up shop in so long, the lock on the old battered door was so rusty that Fitz had to help fiddle with the key just to get it to work properly. 

The walk to Benny’s was also much more of a journey than it had become since Fitz had gotten more used to the underworld. Every few steps Coulson would stop and look into store windows, going on and on about what used to be there before he became the director of the dead. He also marveled at the foggy ceiling above them and the murky river that ran under the crumbling cobble bridge. However maddening the constant halting was--time until sunset was running short after all--it did make Fitz sort of smile in spite of his frustration to see Coulson’s fascination with the place he had lived in for so long. An outside of any kind was a marvel it seemed. 

Eventually they managed to get Coulson to move faster, telling him all about the new drinks Benny had invented the past hundred years and the barrel of whiskey that had just been recovered. So excited he was by the prospect of a drink, it ended up being Fitz and Daisy who brought up the rear as they neared the pub. They took the time to chat, pausing the conversation every now and then to assure they didn’t lose their breath or get a stitch in their sides. Well, at least that was Fitz’s reasoning.

“That was a nice speech that you gave to Coulson back there,” Daisy said, bumping her shoulder playfully into his, “about Jemma and the piano and everything.

Fitz blushed and shrugged to his shoes. “I just took what you said to heart.”

“And what would that be?”

Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked ahead towards the director and Cosmos, the skeletal dog jumping excitedly as he found new stray sticks to chew. 

“I spent so much of my life feeling as though I didn’t belong. I stuck to my science, my music, where I felt safe. And I realize now what I was missing.”

Daisy looked at him carefully, her head tilted slightly over one shoulder. “And what were you missing, Fitz?”

“That fear is a part of life, but it shouldn’t control it.”

A soft smile bloomed on Daisy’s face as sweet as the flower that shared her name. For a moment her gaze fluttered to her hands, which she was holding together at her waist. Carefully, she spun Fitz’s golden band off the bone it resided upon and tucked it into her palm. She paused in the road, right beside a softly flickering street lamp, and took Fitz’s hand in hers. 

“Daisy,” he breathed. He looked at their enjoined hands, his breath catching in his throat as he felt the ring transfer from her palm to his, the cold metal pressing into his skin. 

“Thank you, Fitz,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as she drew her hands away, dropping them to her sides.

He didn’t understand what she was saying or why she was saying it now. It seemed to him that it was he who should be thanking her. She had been the one to solve the problem of the time limit, had been the one to comfort him atop that hill. Or had they comforted one another? That was something he had not considered. Perhaps they should simply be giving thanks to one another.

Holding the ring tightly in his fist, his eyes quickly flicked up to meet hers. 

“I--I don’t understand. What exactly is it you are thanking me for?”

She looked away from him, turning on her heel to start to catch up with Coulson. He had taken the pair’s pausing as an opportunity to examine the decor outside the bone polish shop. 

“I am thanking you for your friendship, Fitz. And before you ask, I am giving you back the ring because it does not belong to me.”

She smiled over her shoulder. “I adore you Fitz.”

“And I adore you!” he broke in, jogging to walk by her side.

“But the love that that ring holds is not for me. It’s for Jemma. And I cannot wait for you to finally be able to give it to her.”

Without another word, Daisy turned her raised chin back to the path and continued to glide along on her satin slippered feet. The nonexistent wind that seemed to be meant just for her caught the ends of her veil and Fitz had to stop for a moment as a wave of emotion washed over him. 

For he realized in that moment that once he reunited with Jemma, he would lose his friend. And in that same instant he realized with a pang that he loved the woman floating in front of him. Not as he loved Jemma, but in a new way all together; a way he had not had the opportunity to feel growing up sheltered in such forlorn solitude. 

Daisy was his friend and he loved her for it. He loved her friendship and he was unsure what he was going to do without it. 

Swallowing hard, he tucked the ring she had given back to him into his jacket pocket, giving it a home next to his recovered stem of baby’s breath. 

Before Fitz could dwell more on the emotions welling up inside him, the group arrived at Benny’s. Both he and Daisy were in more sober a state than they had been in when they had left for the pub. The realization that he would have to say goodbye to his friend weighed heavily on Fitz’s mind, but the moment they passed the threshold into the still rather packed pub and he saw everyone’s faces, a bolt of anticipation shot through his chest. He realized then that it was best if he went back to his _one thing at a time_ idea of the previous evening and pushed off his worry as much as he could. As he did so, an image of Jemma floated into the forefront of his mind’s eye and he took an encouraging breath, letting it fill his lungs and keep him moving forward. Daisy, meanwhile, sidestepped Coulson and stood in the center of the room. 

The patrons of the pub had already gone relatively still, for it was still rather crowded and it was hard to make everyone simply just freeze. Nonetheless, Daisy still dragged out a chair with a screeching sound, silencing pretty much everyone who was still muttering to the corpse next to them. She placed a hand lightly on Fitz’s shoulder and used it to gracefully step up onto the seat of the wooden chair.

“Eh hem,” she called, letting go of Fitz’s shoulder to put her hands by her sides, “Billy, I know that’s you whispering. I said eh hem so shut it. I have come here with a proposal.”

However, just as Billy did in fact shut it, someone else at the bar shouted.

“Is that you Coulson?” the skeleton with the pirate hat asked, pointing his cutlass at the director of the dead. 

“What’s Coulson doing here?”

“Thought you were stuck up in that shop?”

“Everyone, Daisy and the breather have brought along Coulson!”

Waving like a king, Coulson greeted everyone with a little nod.

“What are you here for, Coulson?” Benny asked. “A drink? I’ve got cider, mead. I would offer you wine but that new arrival sort of hoarded the lot. Fan of wine he is. Funny considering it’s the last thing he drank before he came down here. You’d think he’d have had his fill. Oh! I got a whiskey you would like!”

As Fitz tried to process just how much wine the former Simmons butler had had to drink, Coulson shook his skull. “I’m alright for now, Benny. Daisy here has got something to say.”

Fitz thought that was rather obvious given she was standing upon a chair and had been the one to call for attention, but he didn’t say anything and instead looked--along with the rest of the pub’s patrons-- to Daisy. 

Pushing her veil behind her shoulder, as had become sort of a nervous habit, Daisy glanced quickly to Fitz. His pale face and sunken tired features were warm and encouraging, the corner of his mouth drawing in and up as his eyes gleamed a soft hush of blue. Courage seeped into her perpetually cold skin and she looked back out at the crowd before her. 

“I have come to offer up the idea of Visitation Day.” She quickly looked to Coulson and whispered, “That works for the needed proposal right.”

“Sure.”

There were a few vacant stares within the crowd, but then someone in the back gave a slow but hearty clap. Scanning over the room, Daisy realized it was Gwendoline, one of the older residents of the underworld. 

“Do you really mean it, Daisy?” she said in her voice that sounded like shredded velvet. 

“Yes. For those of you who are unaware, Visitation Day is the chance for us all to go up to the surface without any restraints.”

“What’s it cost?” someone Daisy couldn’t see called.

“Is there a cost?”

Daisy swiped a finger quickly over her brow, brushing away a matted hair that had fallen in her face. “There is, but it is one I think is worth what we would be getting. If Coulson grants Visitation Day, there will be no day passes given out for a hundred years. But,” Daisy called when a wave of murmurs went through the crowd, “Time is relative down here. For many of us, a hundred years feels only like a minute. And for those of us who it doesn’t, I have discovered today just how much there is left for us to discover down here. A time to see our loved ones, to feel fresh grass and true wind on our cheeks, to move freely without having to possess a horse and buggy--”

“That was right annoying, Coulson!” 

“Just my point, Robbie. A time where we can enjoy the living world once more is well worth a trade off of simply having to spend a hundred years of getting to enjoy our company and environment down here.”

There was another wave of murmurs, but if she was not mistaken, they seemed to be murmurs of agreement. 

“So,” Daisy said, straightening her spine, “all if favor?”

In a moment of panic, Daisy believed that the idea might have failed for there was a resounding silence deeper than any they had experienced that night. But then, with shaky bones, Gwendoline stood and called a spirited “Aye.”

As the rest of the cheers poured and popped, Daisy stepped down off her chair, once again using Fitz’s shoulder for support. 

She looked at him and found a mixture of disbelief and pure relief painted in his paleness. She gave him a sly smile and squeezed the shoulder she still had not let go of. 

“Shall we go stop a wedding?”

* * *

It was several hours after the incident on the Rose Bush Path and Jemma was starting to wonder if her mother would actually be able to knock down her bedroom door or if it would result in someone unbolting the hinges. 

A few hours before, she had been put in her wedding dress like the oversized doll her mother wished her to be, unable to fight off the process. Anna had tried to be kind about the whole ordeal, staying silent as she peeled off the riding dress and pulled on the ivory gown Lady Simmon had picked for the wedding. Jemma tried very hard not to notice the bustle and endless waves of ruffles, focusing more on the choking feeling of the high button up neckline. The muted mauve dress she had worn yesterday for the wedding rehearsal--the one she had been wearing when she had met Fitz--had had such a neckline, but the fabric had been freer and not as stiff and the buttons had not been so constricting. She felt she might just be strangled by this one. 

It was such a silly thing to be upset about, a dress. But it was. Had she been marrying Fitz she probably would not have minded as much that her mother had picked out the gown. But, now, with a groom she had no desire to marry and an aisle she would be pushed down, at least having a dress she had picked might have helped keep the tears from off her cheeks. Alas, she had no say in that either. 

Her hair was also done in more elaborate a knot, with braids pulling tight and spiralling along the back of her head around a central bun. Pinned into the top of the style was a veil that cascaded down to her feet and for a good deal of a ways behind her. It was quite the distracting accessory, continually getting caught under her heel as she circumnavigated the confines of her room. 

Once she had finished readying her in her wedding attire, Anna had taken Jemma’s crestfallen expression as the intended look of wishing to be left alone. The older woman was always so good at reading her wishes upon her face and, if she had not been so upset, Jemma just might have hugged her for it. Instead, she sat at her vanity table, spinning Fitz’s gift of baby’s breath between her fingers, and watched as her lady’s maid disappeared out the door. 

The moment the slab of wood had clicked completely closed, Jemma had sprung up from her seat to bolt the lock. She still was unsure where Fitz was or what his--or especially her own--plan was yet, but whatever it was it needed time. She couldn’t run away, not now, but she could stall for as long as it took her mother to find a way to tear down her door. 

“Oh, for heaven’s--Robert! Robert! She is still not opening the door. Jemma you open this door this instant! This is a disgrace. You are acting like a child!” On the other side of the wall she heard her mother stamp a heel-booted foot. “Robert, she is not letting me in! Make her let me in!”

For some wild reason, Jemma had to fight very hard against the urge to laugh. Perhaps it was at the utter irony of her mother’s actions, or simply because she could not have imagined the version of herself from even a day ago acting as she was now. Bolting the door against her mother, what a revolutionary and completely inconceivable act!

Somewhere in meeting Fitz, Jemma had gained the courage to disobey her mother. Something about being with him made him worth all the rule breaking in the world. Actually, she guessed she had realized it a long time ago. Love. And as silly and romantic as it sounded, it was her love for him and her desire to be with him that kept her from unbolting the door. That and the pure anger she felt at the lot of them on the other side for chucking her away to the slimeball Lord Monroe. And all for a family name they had long ago run down into the dirt. 

She was more than fine listening to her mother rant and rave, however it was her father’s stern, yet surprisingly clement, tone of voice that pulled her attention. 

“Jemma, poppet, I know that this is not the wedding you wanted, but it is for the best. Now, we have the means to pry down this door, but I would much rather you open it and come down to the carriage on your own accord. I know you think us monsters for wishing you to marry Lord Monroe, but this is about more than us. It is about family.”

“Yes,” her mother agreed after a long pause, a pause in which Jemma just knew was filled with many passing glares between her parents. “Marriage is a partnership, darling. An exchange. It is not always about love.”

“But shouldn’t it be?” Jemma called back, breaking her silence for the first time since Anna left. 

“Do you suppose your father and I love each other?” 

Ah, there was her true mother once more. And her father’s signature apathetic grunt to follow it.

“No,” she sighed, standing with her hands still in her lap, “I do not suppose you do.”

“We married for the betterment of our families,” her mother continued. “And you must do the same with Lord Monroe. Now, the sun is setting so will you please, for God’s sake, open this bloody door.”

Feeling that the hinges would be off the door very soon if she didn’t, Jemma took her time crossing her room to unbolt the door. All the while, she could not help herself in wishing there had been some of their aristocratic acquaintances present when her mother had started screaming herself hoarse at a piece of polished wood and brass. 

“Humph, finally,” her mother snapped as the door swung open. “At least you are dressed. That veil isn’t quite as long as the Queen’s, but it will do. Now come along. Robert, hold her arm in case she gets the urge to fly off again.”

And with that, they lead her through the long hallway, down the grand staircase, out the door, and into the Brougham carriage. Their sad procession into their horse-drawn seats was met by a loud tolling bell, to which her mother gave a frustrated tut. 

“The children are ringing that bell again. Have they no shame, sneaking up into that bell tower! Confuses everyone in town if they don’t ring it properly on the hour.” 

It indeed was odd for the bell to be ringing, but Jemma did not have enough energy to truly devote herself to her normal level of curiosity. Instead, she thought only of her wish to be able to communicate silently with the horse Barnaby, to somehow tell him to take his pace at a nice slow trot. But the coachman had other plans and the moment the Simmons family was tucked up inside and the door to the carriage was shut, he struck the whip across the horse’s back and off they went like a bird in the wind. Jemma too felt like a bird, but one stuffed into a wedding dress and trapped in a black and purple-velveted cage. 

Stuck in the seat across from her parents, Jemma tried very hard not to feel ill. To try and alleviate the nausea, she took to staring out the window and watching the buildings of the village pass her by. Beyond the freshly cobbled streets she could see the familiar flowing river and the bridge that stretched over the water to an expanse of woods. It was then, as she was examining the distant treeline, that she saw what appeared to be a white, emaciated dog. Her heart ached for the poor thing, for despite it’s happily wagging tail it looked in dire need of some food and water. However, as the animal bounded along in a repetitious line at the wood’s edge, Jemma realized with a start that it was not actually a starving animal. No, indeed it was a skeletal one.

She quickly leaned closer to the window and pressed her face against the glass, following the dog’s movements as it padded along. She watched it until the carriage took a turn towards the church, making her lose sight of it. 

It was impossible! Completely against all known science! But there the creature had been. A skeletal dog yapping away, wagging a bony tail, and happily picking up sticks. She fell back into her heavily padded seat with a thump, her eyes focused on the image still looping around in her head.

“Whatever is the matter now?” Lady Simmons asked, unfolding her fan to flap it away in front of her face. 

Jemma startled and drew a horizontal line back and forth with her chin. “Nothing, mother. Just thought I saw something.”

“Well, whatever it is, it is unimportant. Now don’t lean your head against the seat, it shall make your hair split.”

“Jitters,” her father gruffed, his large mustache moving side to side as he twitched his nose.

Jemma nodded, but a small little light of hope started to bloom in her chest. For the first time since she had been stopped by Lord Monroe, she could see a bit of sunshine ahead. “Of course,” she muttered, her hand falling to a spot near her heart, the place she had hidden the stem of baby’s breath Fitz had gifted her.

“The mumbling, Jemma,” her mother tsked.

“I was agreeing, mother. It must be the jitters.”

Or perhaps, if it was what she thought it was, Fitz.

Having seen the other worldly animal, Jemma had another piece of proof in favor of Fitz’s convictions. Really, the corpse bride appearing at her window and dragging Fitz away had been confirmation enough for her. Still, seeing more evidence of the underworld he spoke of only made hope bloom larger and larger in her chest, expanding her heart in her already corseted ribs. She was still unsure of what his plan was--which would have caused her much more anxiety a day and a half ago, but now seemed simply par for the course--but at least it looked as though he had one. And that knowledge made it far easier to stand outside the doors of the church just as the sun was starting to touch the horizon line. 

“I told you she would make us late,” her mother huffed, angrily folding her fan shut. 

Lord Simmons rolled his eyes, but managed to keep his mustache from twitching. “We are here before nightfall. Be glad she opened the door at all or we might not even be here.”

“Lord Monroe has probably been waiting at the front of the church for hours now.”

 _Good_ , Jemma thought, _I do hope he’s been standing there for ages._

Finally at the entrance to the church--the church that Fitz and his mother had paid for, Jemma could not help but wish to remind everyone--her mother did a quick check of her dress and hair and even her shoes, making her lift her feet one at a time so she could dust off the white satin of her slippers. 

“Now,” her mother said, allowing Jemma’s foot to hit the ground once more before shoving the wedding bouquet into her hands, “behave.”

“Be seen,” her father said.

“Not heard.”

Jemma raised a brow, “except for the vows of course.”

Her mother’s lips thinned and Jemma whispered an apology everyone knew she didn’t mean. With that, her mother snuck into the church and as her father made her thread her arm through his.

There was a brief moment where Jemma simply observed the door of the church. It was large, almost medieval looking, with black rivets along each wooden panel and the arch it was fitted in leading to a point. Above the arch were delicately carved windows, looping about and framed in black. It was quite a lovely door, Jemma thought. How sad that she felt as though she must hate it. For she did. She almost wished she could cry at the simple slab of riveted wood. But she felt the urge to cry that much more when it was opened. 

As she stared down the nave towards the altar, Jemma found that there were surprisingly more people sitting in the pews than she had been expecting. After everything that had happened with Fitz and her parents and Lord Monroe, she forgot that anyone else was involved in the process at all. The guests all stood as she began her funeral march down the aisle, their faces oddly grey in the dim light of the church. The sound of the organ echoed in the quiet room, bouncing around in the void of the vast ceiling. And there, at the heart of the apse, stood Lord Monroe. 

The closer Jemma drew to him, the clearer his smile became. But it was a smile completely devoid of light or of love. His dark eyes were rich and deep, but cold, and, as she reached him and their gazes locked, she could not help but think of staring down into the abyss. A well where no warmth or sunshine could reach.

“My jewel,” he said, taking a hold of the hand free of flowers, “I was afraid you had run off.”

She gracefully slid her fingers out of his, folding them neatly over the bouquet. “It is the fashion I hear.”

She had just seen a spark of anger flash across his striking features, the dark brows lowering dangerously on his forehead, before she turned frontwards and faced Master Willsworth. 

Having both seen and heard the entire exchange, Master Willsworth cleared his gravelly throat and began the ceremony in his slow and mind-numbingly dull drawl, sounding as though he were an ancient scroll come to life. 

Jemma, who was normally an excellent listener, could hardly stay awake, let alone pay attention, to any of the words pouring out of Master Willsworth’s mouth. Instead, she watched as his lips formed words that did not reach her ears and imagined slugs in the shape of text fall from his mouth. As she pictured it, she did not know whether it made her want to laugh or shrink away. Eventually, when the thought actually made her stomach churn, she just tilted her chin upwards and analyzed the stained glass that made up the back wall of the church. The sun was gone now and so only the dull candlelight carved out the images. Normally, the rich colors of the window lit up as brightly as Christmas day, but now they merely soaked up the light to make muted shadows of the normally vibrant scene. 

Jemma was just analyzing the pale face of one of the Saints when Master Willsworth loudly cleared his throat. 

“Sorry?” she said. 

“It is your turn for the vows Miss Simmons.”

She blinked twice before she had finally heard what had been said. 

“Right. Of course. The vows.”

She hadn’t heard Grant repeat his own vows at all, but he must have done for the candle was lit and he had the ring in his hand. Swallowing down her rising fear, Jemma lifted her hand as she had been taught at the rehearsal. 

“With this hand I will lift your sorrows. Your cup… Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine.” She looked up from the table as the wine was poured by Master Willsworth and caught a sinister smile pulling up Lord Monroe’s lips. For a moment she completely blanked on what she was supposed to do, everything in her telling her to run. Whatever was he smiling at her like that for? And however did anyone find such a cold face so handsome? He looked carved of marble, but as though he had a heart that was carved to match.

“Miss Simmons,” Master Willsworth hissed. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered before refocusing on what she was doing. With trepidatious fingertips, she took the candle that was offered to her and lit it in the flame upon the altar. 

“With this candle, I will light your way into darkness. With this ring,” she nearly cried as it was placed upon her finger, “I ask you to be mine.”

There was clapping in the distance and each thundercrack of meeting palms carves slivers into Jemma’s heart. She had to bite her lip to just keep herself from shouting at them to stop. Master Willsworth, however, did so for her. 

In a voice that was far louder than it had been before, a voice that boomed and bounced off the stone walls and vacant ceiling, he said, “Now, to make this marriage official under our eyes and the Lord’s, you must share the wine you poured together in ceremony before sharing a kiss.”

He handed the golden chalice into which he had poured the wine to Lord Monroe first. With smooth hands and long fingers, Lord Monroe took the cup and brought it to his lips, tilting the bottom up just a hair before bringing it down again. He had done it so quickly Jemma was unsure he had even taken a sip. Before she could think too much on it, however, he was passing it over to her, even going so far as to wrap her fingers around it to be sure she wouldn’t let it fall. 

There was that smile again. That marble hearted smile that only pretended to shimmer like gold. The one that had a darkness to it, a wickedness that could not be forgotten once it had been seen. A shiver running down her spine, Jemma hesitated to bring the chalice to her lips and she saw the smile falter. 

But, before she could ponder any more on what she had just seen, a large commotion came from outside. Then, with a loud scrape and a spectacular boom, the church doors opened, heralding a new arrival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr @springmagpies! 💛


	7. The Finale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well everyone. Here we are. And to think this all started with a trio of moodboards! I cannot tell you how much all of your support and kind words have meant to me. I seriously don't know what I did to get so lucky to have such lovely people wish to read my work, let alone make amazing works of art based on it or recommend it to others!. I really cannot wrap my head around it! Thank you all so so much!!! Now, please enjoy the final chapter of this wild ride of a fic!! 💛

The amount of time it took to get everyone to the surface should not have been so surprising. And yet--as is often the case when one is in a great haste to get somewhere--Daisy found the whole ordeal to nearly take forever. Next to her, she could feel Fitz’s restlessness begin to tighten like a tuned piano string, every slow step upwards eliciting a loud huff from him. She had known him to be quite nervous--though admittedly she had met him under quite stressful circumstances--but now she was seeing his more grumpy nature. Surprisingly, she found the factor quite endearing in her friend. It was nice to know he was as human as everyone else. 

The moment they finally reached the land of the living, the residents of the underworld all collectively rejoiced at the fresh air and open sky above them. Cosmos, who had led the charge, yapped away happily at the darkening sky. With a quick bark to her and Fitz, the pup ran for where the trees began to thin and the open ceiling above them shone more clearly with stars.

“Should we call him back?” Fitz asked, “might not do well for people to see…and they’re going to see a bunch of skeletons and corpses anyway.”

“Exactly,” Daisy agreed. She looped her arm through Fitz’s elbow and gave him a quick familial squeeze. “Breathe, Fitz. You are almost there.”

“We,” he said, squeezing back, “We are almost there. I would not be here were it not for you.”

“Sadly, I think that’s true.” 

She made to walk away, but Fitz held her back by gently grabbing her hand. “Misunderstandings, Daisy. And ones we are both trying to mend, right?”

“Yes,” she smiled. “That we are. Now come on. We’ve got a wedding to stop.”

She gave his hand another squeeze before turning on her heel to glide away before him. They moved quickly through the foggy woods, her as graceful as ever and Fitz surprisingly nimble compared to his behavior the previous evening. There was some running into stray branches, but for the most part the trees left them be and the leaf strewn ground laid still. 

Finally making their way through the foggy wood, the pair met Cosmos at the tree line, followed by the rest of the undead village. Out of the forest, the air was lighter and the wisps of cold more pronounced as they whistled in the wind. The lights across the river glowed in the coming darkness and, at the sight of them just beyond the bridge, there was no longer any sense of trepidation among the crowd. Daisy could hear a few sniffles behind her and a few excited squeaks. She herself, even after having just seen it all the night before, could not help but smile at the brilliance of the village’s warm charm. It had not looked so enchanting when she herself had felt so cold. But now, Fitz at her elbow and his friendship in her heart, she finally could see it’s beauty.

As the corpses crossed the river into town, there was only one bit of uncertainty and that was whether to split up or not. In spite of the glow, the whole place was ghostly quiet, fog laying low and not a soul wandering about.

“Where’s everyone gone off to?” Mrs. Plum shouted.

“Dunno,” someone else replied. 

It was Fitz, an odd look in his eye and a crease between his brows, who answered.

“They’re all at the church.”

“Not all of them,” Daisy replied. She pointed to a window in a nearby shop, the sign outside claiming it as the village bakery. For in the window she had seen an open shutter close with a bang, a young boy with a pink nose disappearing behind it.

Moments later, the door opened and two young children with wide open mouths came creeping across the threshold into the oncoming night. They had obviously been left alone by their parents, for no one followed them out the door before they pulled it closed.

“You’re all dead!” the littlest, a young girl with a pink ribbon in her short brown hair, exclaimed matter of factly.

The boy with the blushing nose, who Daisy assumed to be the girl's older brother, quickly pulled the smaller one back. 

“Elsie, don’t.”

“But Ernest, they are! Look! Some of ‘em don’t even got skin or nothing!”

The boy looked as though he was about to tell his sister off, when he was cut off by a cry from the crowd.

“Ernest!” came a deep shout from a corpse somewhere towards the middle of the gathering. “Elsie! Is that you!”

There was a good deal of pushing and Daisy quickly dragged Fitz to the side as a very tall corpse with a very long cane came limping past them. He looked only somewhat decayed, about the same stage as Daisy. There were a few exposed bones, but for the most part he looked perfectly fine. Well, as good as he could considering he was no longer living.

He was dressed in not the finest of overcoats, but obviously his best, and atop his head was a slightly worn cap. Tucked into his pocket, however, was a gold watchless chain. Turning her gaze back to the boy and girl standing on the stoop, Daisy suddenly caught sight of the boy desperately clinging to a pocket watch. It appeared to be a talisman of comfort for the boy and his knuckles were white with the tightness on which he held to it.

The boy and girl stared for a long time at the undead--but still very much dead--man, their mouths once more opening wide like they were two little codfish. Then, in a completely harmonious chorus, the children shouted and ran to wrap their arms around the man’s waist. 

“Granddad!”

“It’s really you, isn’t it?!”

“Yes,” the man cried, “it really is!”

At the reunion, Daisy could not help but feel that much warmer inside. This had been part of the reason she had suggested Visitation Day afterall. Reuniting loved ones, allowing them to spend a minute more together, and, for those who needed it, giving everyone a chance at a proper farewell. All these reasons had been a part of her plea. Along with helping Fitz of course.

Fitz! The wedding!

She yanked on Fitz’s torn sleeve, her eyes going wide with urgency. 

“The church,” she said. 

He nodded vigorously and started to move within the crowd, dodging elbows and swerving around swaying bodies. Just as they were almost done winding their way through, the little boy who had reunited with his granddad seemed to answer a question the two of them had missed being asked.

“Everyone’s all at the church, sir! Miss Simmons is gettin’ married!”

“Not to the nice one, though,” Elsie added solemnly. “To the icky one.”

Fitz’s head perked and he looked over his shoulder to spot the girl’s downtrodden look. Glad to know he was not alone in his dislike for Lord Monroe. There it was, out of the mouth of babes.

“Should we all go there now?” someone shouted, breaking Fitz out of his momentary triumph in hearing criticism of Lord Monroe.

“No way we’ll all fit in the church! Barely all fit in below the graveyard!”

“They really do need to expand that place. Willsworth’s just being a penny pincher about it.”

It was the little boy Ernest who broke through the din. 

“I’ve got an idea! I’ll run up and get everyone! I can run real fast. Faster than Theodore Bingsly and even Albert Troddinger. Huh, Elsie!”

“He can goes way fastly!” 

The crowd murmured before Ernest’s plan--with a few modifications--was agreed upon. As the plan stood, he would gather up the town from the church while the group of undead started to make their way there, meeting the living outside. 

Once the boy had dashed off, kicking up puffs of dirt in his slippers and really going remarkably fast for a child with not the longest of legs, Daisy and Fitz followed closely behind him and the rest of the crowd made up the rear. 

“Well,” Daisy said, leaning over to whisper to Fitz, “maybe it won’t be us who stops the wedding. Perhaps it will be a whole mob.”

“And Ernest,” Fitz added.

“Yes. And Elsie as well.”

“Very true. Perhaps she’ll even kick Lord Monroe.”

“We can only hope.”

* * *

As the door banged open, every head in the church spun in the direction of the entrance, every gaze landing upon what appeared to be the baker’s boy, ruddy cheeked and panting.

“Listen everybody!” he shouted, as though he did not already have their attention with his dramatic entrance, “there’s dead people walking about outside.”

Disbelieving and panicked murmurs alike filled up what had once been dull, and dare it be said bored, silence. Meanwhile, still frozen at the altar, Jemma’s heart leapt.

“Whatever do you mean there are dead people outside?” Lady Simmons shouted. 

“There are, miss! Tons of ‘em! Mine and Elsie’s granddad and Teddy’s Aunt Edith! Could tell from the wig! Even old Mister Mayhew’s dead wife is back from the grave! I saw her spectacles and all!”

“Gwendoline?”

“Yes sir! I seen it! They’re all wandering their way over here! They’re not doin’ no harm! Just sayin’ ‘ello! You got to see ‘em!”

There was a brief moment where no one knew quite what to do, but then the baker’s boy cried out an exasperated, “well come on then!” and it was as if a shot had just gone off to signal the start of a horse race. Pews were pushed back with a cacophony of screeches and scrapes and everyone filed out of the church without any sense of order. Above the din, Jemma could hear her own mother shouting about plans and sensibility and finally, when all hope for order was lost, for everyone to get out of her way. 

Jemma, however, did not care a single iota about any of the pushing, shoving, or shouting or even the fact that her wedding ceremony had gone not only incomplete but completely off kilter. She only cared about one thing, breathing out his name as she made to step off the raised platform that held the altar.

“Fitz.”

She had just placed a dusted off shoe one step down when she was wrenched violently back, a powerful hand holding her upper arm like a vise and thus holding her entirely hostage.

“Uh uh uh, Miss Simmons. Where do you think you’re going, my jewel?” Lord Monroe whispered into her ear, his normally crisp accent slipping slightly to something slightly more nasal as she felt his lips touch her earlobe.

“I am going,” she said, attempting to rip her arm away from his tight grasp, “to find Fitz.”

“I’m afraid you can’t do that, Jemma. It would be rude to leave your husband at the altar for some other man.”

“As far as I can see, we never completed that officiation. And as Master Wellsworth has run off to see the new arrivals, it seems we never will.”

She gave a fierce yank and finally managed to free herself from his grip, only to be spun around once more as he stepped on her veil and wrapped an arm around her waist. Suddenly his face was so close she could feel his boiling breath on her cheek as he spoke.

“Why are you acting this way? Do you mean to hurt me? Do you mean to ruin the life we could build together? Imagine the places we could go, things we could see. With your family’s money, just imagine the possibilities.”

Jemma’s brows moved closer together as she drew a line back and forth with her nose. “Money? My family doesn’t have any money. My marriage to you is the only thing keeping us out of the poorhouse. I don’t have a cent.”

“You--you have nothing?”

“No.” Jemma gave him a shove and, with him in such a shocked state, managed to free herself from his hold. 

“But your parents--”

“Only have their name. So sorry if they fooled you. I guess we’re both disappointed by this match.”

Anger, white hot and violent, flashed across his face, filling up the wells of his eyes with the black smoke of a burning rage. Before she knew what had happened, he had crossed the small gap of space she had managed to put between the two of them and wrapped his powerful hands around her throat. 

“You tricked me, you wily minx! You and your pathetic family.”

His accent was completely gone now, replaced by one so completely different that it would have taken her aback had she not been so frightened by it. Now more fearful than ever, Jemma struggled against his large hands, clawing to try and rid her throat of his thin but unyielding fingers. So filled with fire, he started to lift her up, leaving her to struggle on the very tips of her toes. Breathing was becoming harder and harder the higher he lifted her, for with each millimeter he raised her the stronger his wrath became. 

Then somewhere, somewhere far away it felt as the world began to grow dim, came the booming sound of the opening ornate door.

“Let her go you bloody bastard!”

Surprise loosened Lord Monroe’s hold, but not enough to allow Jemma to break free. Turning her head as much as she could, her heart jumped high up in her chest as relief brought tears to her eyes. 

Fitz.

“Ah! The lovesick boy returns!” Lord Monroe sneered in his now truthful tongue, “knew you were carrying a torch, but I will admit I did not expect you to actually be led by it. Thought your well of courage too depleted. Appears I underestimated the pair of you. More resilient than I thought.”

“I told you to let her go, Lord Monroe!” Fitz fired back, walking further down the nave and ignoring the other man’s taunts. At his heels was the dog Jemma had seen pacing by the forest’s edge, his skull low as he growled and bared his teeth. 

“I am afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Fitz. She is my wife and I may do as I please.”

“That is not how it works,” Jemma choked, pushing against his chest, “and I--” another shove, “am not--” another, “your wife!” With all the remaining power she could muster, Jemma smacked Lord Monroe straight across the face and sent the ill fitting ring he had placed on her finger flying. 

There was another flash of anger as he made to tighten his grip. However, he was interrupted by the call of another arrival.

Upon arriving at the church, Daisy had initially given Fitz the space to reunite with Jemma privately. When she had heard shouts, however, she had come running with Coulson and a few other underworldly residents who followed her lead. But she had not expected to find the scene she did, particularly the man who had been masquerading as Lord Monroe.

“Grant?” 

He stilled, his eyes traveling to meet hers. Recognition poured over his face like someone had cracked an egg over his head and his mouth fell open in a way that at any other time might have been comedic.

“Daisy—what—what are you doing here? I thought you were—“

“Grinning at the daisy roots?” she jabbed, “I am. But it seems both our ghosts have come back to haunt us.”

Fitz’s eyes went as wide as a full moon as realization dawned on him, filling him with another wave of injustice-fueled fire. 

“You’re the murderous wank who left her for dead under that tree. The man who took her money and ran!” Heat flooded his cheeks, turning his normally pink blush into a furious shade of crimson. “You rat bastard. You were trying to do the same thing to Jemma! Marry her and then murder her.”

Gasps rang out through the crowd that Daisy had brought along, most notably from Jack, who dropped both his cutlass and his mandible to the ground in shock, and Marty, whose whole eye popped out of his skull along with the spare fork he liked to keep stuck in it.

“How were you planning on doing it, huh?” Fitz continued, inching closer to the altar, “strangle her like Daisy? Or were you going to try something new, like choking her while you were still in the church?”

It was Daisy who answered Fitz’s line of questions, a pile of foggy memories suddenly all pulling into focus. “Poison.”

Grant's jaw clenched before a sneer pulled at his lips. “And whatever made you think that?”

“You tried it on the Simmonses’ butler. Saw he had a weakness for wine and slipped it into the bottle. I’m guessing you wanted to see how long it took to work.”

“Forgot how clever you were,” he said. “Clever, but with a need that negated it all. Ah ah ah, Mister Fitz. Come closer and I do something you wouldn’t like.” 

Fitz halted where he stood, going pale as he watched Grant tighten his hold on Jemma’s neck. Daisy, however, looked away from his hands and down to his feet. There, scratching at Jemma’s legs, was Cosmos. 

Jemma, seeing the direction of Daisy’s gaze, dared a glance down to her skirts, giving a slight nod as the pup moved from her dress to the hem of Grant’s dark trousers. And there, catching the command, Cosmos opened his jaw and bit down hard. 

“Aaaagh!” Grant howled, trying to shake off the pup’s unrelenting teeth to no avail. While he struggled against the much needed distraction, Jemma hurled an elbow right into his ribs and threw herself forward off the platform and into Fitz’s awaiting arms. 

“Hi,” she breathed. 

“Hi,” he breathed back.

It was then, after only a moments reunion, that they both had to duck, Grant hurling the ceremonial candlestick in their direction. Diving behind the pews as total chaos started to unfold, Fitz had to crawl one way as Jemma crawled the other. Neither knew where Daisy or anyone else had gone off to, but Coulson’s cry that no one from the underworld could interfere in the fight gave them the sinking knowledge that they were alone in at least the physical part of the struggle. 

Fitz, having dragged himself to what he thought was a relatively safe location, had just gotten back to his feet when someone screamed at him to duck again. Somewhere in the scuffle, Grant had managed to get a hold of the pirate’s cutlass and, upon obtaining the weapon, had headed right for Fitz. The blade was so close to cutting the Scotsman that it nearly skimmed off the split ends of his wayward curls before he dipped behind another bench. 

There was a moment where Fitz’s thought he might just be able to catch his breath, but that dream was dashed at the sound of Jemma crying out his name. He quickly shot his head up over the pews, expecting to see something terrible. Instead he saw Jemma, her lamplight eyes bright as she signaled him with her brow before shouting, “Catch!”

With a good deal of dramatic windup, Jemma hurled something bright and silver across the aisle, it’s path making an arch and almost moving in slow motion as it made its flight. Fitz caught it triumphantly, ready to celebrate, only to realize it was just Marty’s fork. Before he could even so much as think of complaining, he heard another swing of Ward’s cutlass.

By some sheer miracle, Fitz managed to catch the blade of the cutlass between two of the tongs, turning the handle sharply to momentarily knock the sword out of Ward’s hands and give him enough time to find refuge behind the same pew as Jemma.

“A fork!?” he cried.

“It’s all I had!”

Bang! Another slash of the sword and they split apart once more. Jemma screamed and Fitz fell back in the direction of the altar. Stumbling onto his feet, he tripped over onto the platform at the top of the church. He could sense Ward right on his heels, could even feel the displacement of the air as the cutlass came cutting his way. He braced himself for the pain of it, for the blood and for the end, shutting his eyes tightly and holding his hand out in front of him. But none of it came. He heard the sword cut into something and when he peeled open his eyes he found out what exactly that had been. 

With one slow and somehow rather dignified movement, Daisy pulled the blade by it’s ornately curved handle from out between her exposed ribs. With another swift movement, she turned the blade on Ward.

“Enough, Grant,” she said, her voice quiet but cutting. 

“Are you going to kill me, Daisy?” he asked, his forehead creasing and a hollow play at sadness pooling in the lines around his eyes and mouth. He sidestepped, slowly moving to walk up onto the platform, the tip of the blade following his movement. 

At his remark, however, she dropped the sword. “I can’t,” she said, giving a quick glance towards Coulson before flicking her eyes back to Ward. “Though I have enough reasons to.”

“Yes. You do, don’t you. Though, could I truly be blamed for all of it? I don’t think I am alone in my faults. Have you not all lied and cheated and,” he nodded to the blade in her hands, “threatened life or death?”

Daisy stayed silent, her chin tucked slightly as she held her glare. 

“I did love you, you know,” he said, changing tact.

Again, Daisy stayed silent and Ward huffed a bitter laugh. 

“Fine then. If you won’t accept my attempts to make amends I shall just leave you with a toast.” He picked up the chalice on the altar with a petty sneer on his face, looking quickly at Fitz and Jemma before staring right back at Daisy. Both the couple and Daisy--as well as the rather tense crowd in the pews--opened their mouths and jawbones as he raised the cup to the sky. No one, however, reminded him of what it contained. 

“To the happy couple!” he said, “And to my darling Daisy. I hope you get all that you deserve.”

He took a great gulp of the wine and placed the chalice back upon the altar. 

“And I hope the same for you,” Daisy replied. “I do believe yours is coming sooner than you think.”

She nodded to the now empty cup and watched as horrific realization dawned on Ward’s face. For a long moment he grappled with what he had just done before stumbling his way off the platform and down towards the exit. When he reached it, though, he did not find the escape he had been seeking. Instead, he was met by the entire town, all of whom had been listening in. They didn’t even give him time to work his silver snake-like tongue before they carted him away. He probably wouldn’t face that much time in this world, but he sure had hell to pay in the next.

With Ward being dragged away, the church was left relatively silent once more. However, now in the silence the candles burned bright and the stained glass glowed as it had always meant to. 

“Are you alright?” Fitz asked Daisy as Jemma helped him to his feet. 

“Yes,” she replied, her heart fluttering freely for the first time in what was almost a lifetime, “I’m better than I thought I would be.” 

She moved her veil from off her shoulders before something dawned on her. With delicate fingers, she reached up and pulled the comb that held it in place from out of her hair, dropping it to the floor of the church with a clang.

“Much better, actually. I think--perhaps--I have found what I was looking for Fitz.”

He looked at her with gentle eyes, a soft smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. “And what is that Daisy.”

She glanced over her shoulder to Coulson, who was watching her carefully over his spectacles, and the rest of the people she realized she had found a home in.

“I spent so long looking to be loved, I never thought to look for it in other forms.” Her eyes fluttered back to Fitz and she beamed at him. “Not until I met you. And not until I actually realized I was worth being loved in any capacity.”

“I don’t think I had anything to do with that,” Fitz blushed, but Daisy shook her head.

“No, Fitz. You had more to do with it than you know.”

She gave a great sigh, looking out the church’s side windows to see the starry sky that laid above them.

“What are you going to do?” Fitz asked, drawing her attention back. 

“I was thinking I would take a walk in the woods. A friend of mine said it helps him clear his mind.”

Fitz looked at her carefully, an inquisitive brow raised. “If I may ask, what are you clearing your mind of?”

She pondered for a moment before a look of peace fell over the soft features of her face. “Nothing actually. I think, before I go back, I’d like to just look at the stars.”

Giving her a silent nod and a loud smile, Fitz then turned his attention to the skeletal pup that had wound his way between his and Jemma’s legs.

“You’ll take care of Cosmos, won’t you?” he asked, stooping down to give his first friend a pat on his skull.

“Of course,” Daisy replied. 

As Fitz stood and wound his arm around Jemma’s waist, Daisy’s eyes drifted between the pair of them, her lips pulling into a gentle smile at the way Jemma held onto Fitz and he onto her. 

“And you’ll take care of each other?”

The couple’s eyes quickly met and the pair blushed a matching shade of peony pink. 

“Of course,” Jemma said.

“Absolutely,” Fitz replied.

There was a weighty moment of a silent goodbye as Daisy’s eyes locked onto Fitz’s. Neither spoke, but enough was said. A quiet wishing of the other well.

With a little laugh like sigh, Daisy released something out into the open air that she had been bottling up for a lifetime before giving her friend a smile.

“See you in the next life.”

And there, free of her veil, Cosmos at her heels, and with the wind meant just for her in her hair, Daisy walked out of the church and out into the night air, framed by the endless expanse of stars above her.

“Are you alright, Fitz?” Jemma asked after a moment of quiet reflection. She gently placed her hand on his cheek and he leaned into her touch, kissing her palm before taking it in his.

“Yes, surprisingly. I think I am. I have torn my jacket, though.”

Jemma grinned, fiddling with the tear in his sleeve. Then, a spark in her eye, she brushed the dirt off his shoulders, sending dust out into the air. Her hands covered in earth, she then swiped her palms across the cream colored fabric of her dress, leaving it covered in the same brown dirt that coated Fitz’s entire being.

“And now I’m covered in dirt. I could tear my veil too, rip my stockings, roll around in leaves until they’re embedded in the lace. Mother picked this dress anyway.”

“I would still think you looked beautiful,” Fitz smiled.

“And I think the torn jacket makes you look quite devil-may-care. Besides, we could get married in our bed clothes and it wouldn’t matter to me at this point. As long as I was marrying you.”

“I think my mum would rather see me in a kilt.”

“Actually, now that you’ve said that, I quite agree with your mother. But my meaning still stands.”

“And I quite agree. Marrying you, I’m the luckiest man in any world. This one or the next. But I do think we should get married somewhere other than this church.”

“Yes. Agreed. Without my parents present.”

“Yes. And not tonight.”

Jemma shook her head and laughed at her shoes, a pinned back lock of hair falling loose to curl around her jaw.

“What are you giggling about?” Fitz asked, lightly squeezing Jemma’s hands to get her attention.

“I just had a thought. That after everything that has happened in the past two days, that perhaps it actually did all go according to plan. Just perhaps—“

“Not your mothers.”

“Exactly,” Jemma laughed, “And I do believe that it is for the better.”

Cupping Jemma’s face in his hands, Fitz did what he had been wishing to do for what felt like a lifetime. He kissed Miss Jemma Simmons.

“Yes,” he said, touching their foreheads together, “I quite agree.”

And there, in that church, free of ties and disapproving tongues, the pair made vows of their own. Not yet of marriage, but still one of love. In this life and the next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr @springmagpies!


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